What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

Lilly had downtime at the moment. It felt unusual. She didn't get that. She'd never gotten that. There was always something to do. Now there wasn't. Even piloting would be just her playing around. It wouldn't be useful. She could still pilot of course, but she wouldn't get anything out of it until Dowry was updated. She couldn't even bother Bolt! The young man was extremely busy trying to cram as much information as possible into his head to update Dowry!

About the only thing she had in the near future was a small escort mission with Dowry to bring some mechs in, and that promised to be a cakewalk. Everyone on the planet was sort of laying low at the moment in an attempt to figure out what was going to change. Lilly wasn't ashamed to admit she was wondering the same thing. She couldn't even recruit or train people yet. Things were in too much flux.

For a person who's spent their life moving from action to action, this moment of stillness felt unpleasant.

Identifying and squashing that issue was therefore her first step to keeping occupied. Lilly was living life on her own terms. A flaw in her behavior was a blockage just as much as anything else. Fortunately the need for action was just the little girl in her wanting to go zoom zoom. She wasn't that anymore.

Some meditation came first. Spending a few hours focusing on herself and her newfound willpower would help her come to terms to her new existence. There was a distinct presence inside her that she needed to feel out and measure. Her willpower she assumed. It was likely going to be an ongoing process that she'd take her time with. Every day she'd spent some time identifying the feel of it.

After that she decided to roam around. The new fortress was big! And rather empty, as she'd found. There was a lot unused. It'd been designed as a small city, and they had enough for a small town. It'd fill out eventually, but for now roaming was just running through empty stone hallways. Pretty boring and something she gave up after exploring another empty room.

Piloting all of Bolt's mechs was the next attempt at keeping occupied. Lilly hadn't tried the Shining Shrine Maiden, or Cerberus. Both of them needed to be put through their paces!

It was only after she'd nearly caused the poor dog she was piloting to break that Lilly figured out she was being a bit too maniac. Cerberus hadn't deserved what she'd done with it. There was a difference between stress testing and just ruining the things. She'd gotten far closer to the latter than she was comfortable with. The dogs were fun though. They felt dependable. Sometimes you needed that in a mech. Not everything needed to be cutting edge impossible to pilot things.

Trying to squish bad impulses was harder than it sounded. Lacking any other ideas, she started to roam again and eventually found herself in one of the more protected areas. That was how she'd ended up in the nursery and helping to watch over the kids. It wasn't something most experts would do, but he she wasn't most experts.

The Wrench Rats practiced communal childcare. Their schedules were, put politely erratic. This combined with the fact that many people thought targeting their children was a valid tactic meant that they'd found it easiest to put the younger kids in the most fortified areas possible and assign a few minders to manage it all. The kids were frequently brought out to help with various chores in more trying times, but they had a nice central area to have their lessons and care done.

Lilly was very harshly reminded that this option wasn't available to her yet as she helped with a few minor things. She could not have children until she had money. She made a mental note to get back to researching later. Until then, dipper changing, burping, and helping the older children with lessons. (The caregivers had protested, but experts got what they wanted.)

Gadget was the oldest of the group at the moment. The older ones had started to migrate to their own rooms as they became able to do work. The girl seemed disinclined to. She was more concerned with her lessons, much like Bolt. Watching her go through them was mildly entertaining. The girl was just as focused as her brother. Lilly had ended up nearby the girl once she'd settled down and dealt with all the more obvious chores.

"Mom said you were an expert now." The words came in between lessons once she realized that Lilly was sticking around.

Lilly nodded slowly and gave the other kids a look. They were all on their best behavior at the moment amusingly enough. It wasn't even something she'd done. They were just playing nicely.

Gadget continued without looking up from her learning pad. "You gonna keep us safe?"

"That's something I'll certainly focus on." Lilly immediately tried to reassure the girl with a wide smile and a flex.

"Good, smash em." Gadget replied and started up another lesson. "Make their mechs junk."

"Ain't gotta worry about that." The expert pilot confirmed. "Anyone that'd think about hurting our family would get smashed." She promised easily. That was one promise she wanted to keep.

"Good. Less mechs the better." The little girl mumbled.

Words like that were quite unusual and made Lilly hone her senses in on the girl. "You don't like mechs?" She asked.

The emotions the child displayed were startling in their purity, if not in the intensity. Gadget had opinions and she wasn't shy about voicing them. "Don't like them." There was genuine hate there.

"And why not?" The expert prodded.

Gadget closed in on herself a bit and pulled her lesson pad closer as she looked away. "Just don't." She said softly.

Lilly nodded with cheer very obvious on her face. "That's perfectly fine. You don't have to like them." She encouraged in a similarly soft tone. "You're a smart girl. We can find other things to do."

Those words got her to look up to meet the older woman's eyes. Upon seeing that Lilly seemed sincere Gadget relaxed slightly and held up her current lesson. Lilly felt her eyebrows raise.

"Spaceships?" She asked back.

"We need some, daddy said. I'll build them!" The young girl nodded. "Not mechs." She continued with a nod.

For a brief moment Lilly blanked on what to say. There were issues with her desire. However, she was an expert. Thinking quickly was part of that. Using her newly found powers to figure out the best words to say to a child was probably not exactly what they were for, but they'd do it anyway!

"I look forward to seeing them then." Lilly praised the young girl. "Be sure to build the best ships ever!"

That got the girl to preen and she began to go over the ships she was learning on. Lilly was pretty sure that the lessons were CFA approved rather than MTA approved, but they weren't bad ones by any means. She just wasn't sure why the tiny tot had gotten into them.

A few discrete checks had her find out that the Wrench Rats had paid a premium for an early self-guided educational system. It was meant to ferret out and encourage specific talents in children. Gadget had apparently expressed a disdain for mechs and a liking for science and then gotten into the CFA programs. They weren't nearly as popular as the MTA things, and were kind of offensive to a pilot, but the little girl seemed to like them. Ship building was a respectable position, so it wasn't like Gadget was doing a bad thing. It was just sort of, well different.

Somehow Lilly was quite sure that Gadget was going to be just as large a terror as her brother, just in a different way. She had to wonder what the girl's parents had eaten? Whatever it was, she wanted some for her own children, when they could come about.

Still needed that money. Lilly admittedly didn't want children right this moment, but she had a goal. She wouldn't have her choices taken by anyone, including her own body.

 

[lost star]

You'd think they'd be less busy now. They weren't. They were in fact becoming more busy. It was just a contained sort of thing if that made any sense. Their current goal was a party. Which, well sounded strange to say out loud. It was a political party that all the Wrench Rats and Lilly would hate. It had to be done. Officially it was a celebration of their marriage and Lilly's ascension. Unofficially, it was going to be a sort of bow to the other nations. They'd invite a few of the more important people, and political shit was going to happen.

Before then, Bolt wanted to get Dowry situated. If he could make her a mostly expert mech, everyone would have a lot less leverage. This wasn't a feasible task on the face of it. Getting education in how to build an expert mech took study. It took specialized courses that weren't publicly available. It was in essence something that only well educated and connected people could learn.

It was possible for him to learn anyway though. He'd learn it the same way he learned how to make mechs. He'd learn from their trash. He'd take two of their mechs apart and learn from their failures. His hope was that would give him enough to work off. He'd still need a senior, but only for resonant materials, not for the general upgrade. There was a distinct difference between the design of an expert mech and the specialized parts that gave them what amounted to magic powers. (Yes that term was incorrect, Bolt was still going to call it magic because he was feeling petty at the moment.)

The two expert mechs his father had found were on the older side but still very relevant. About a decade old, they'd been buried underneath several tons of rocks and abandoned. Their location and circumstances were an old mech secret. Another mech would have been crushed so badly they'd be unrecoverable. These were still pretty bad, but they were something one could theoretically rebuild. It'd just be pointless, because expert mechs were explicitly made for their experts.

Bolt had a sneaking suspicion that if he wanted to, he could use one to repair the other and have Lilly pilot it. The tests they'd done had shown that she resonated with a lot of materials. She tested negative for a lot as well, but these two were made of types she could use. At least theoretically. He wasn't an expert and was just going off what the tests said.

His first observation was that even ten years old, these things were still advanced beyond anything else he'd worked with. One was a pure swordsman. The other was what looked to be a striker. Discounting the exotic components, they'd still be able to absolutely trash any mechs on the field just based on performance.

Each mech was laced with exotics. They had state of the art components that were still advanced compared to today. The material cost alone was ten times what a normal mech would have. All of this was synched and aligned with what Bolt assumed to be the dead pilot. These were custom pieces worth fortunes alone, and a prize even ruined.

It was an investment that they couldn't match yet. They were making money at the moment. They were not making that much money. It'd take about a year to afford to make an expert mech from scratch, assuming they kept up sales. If Bolt dipped into his and Lilly's savings, they could probably afford the plans and components right now. It would bring their savings to near zero though. It was a suboptimal action that would have to be a last resort, and one that he hoped to avoid.

Bolt hoisted the dead mechs up on the bay. Sitting there, they looked defeated. A far cry from what they had been. These were failures in one sense of the word. Dead bodies. All of the tech in the world, and now their worth only laid in the materials they held and the lessons he could wring from them. It was hard to be optimistic in front of such grim reminders, but Bolt was. Surprisingly so. This reminded of him when he was a kid actually.

Armor first, as always. Carefully prying it apart was harder than it sounded. The metal had warped from the weight that the mechs had been placed under. Dirt and small stones were still lodged in some areas. Some of the welds and screws required power tools to pry loose. It was all advanced stuff and custom alloys as well. Deliberately design choices to maximize what the designer had felt would best compliment the pilot. It was non-standard and very difficult to pull off without causing further damage.

The striker's most carefully made part was its weapon. Bent and broke, this had been someone's specialty. There were a few lessons in it even as ruined as it was. Bolt could see the dedication and lines in the shotgun's form. It had been someone's baby in design, but not in creation. The assembler had been methodic in a professional way.

That pattern continued for the mech. It was Vesia, he could tell this without looking at the history. None of the telltale missiles, but there were certain patterns common in their designs. They used specific screws at certain internal joins and threaded cables in a rather distinct pattern. Alloy choices were another tell, though not a certain one. There was a strange mix of attention to detail and clinical manufacturing in the creation of this mech. One of the designers had explicitly focused on how the little details added up into something big that the manufacturers hadn't followed as precisely as the design required. It was an intriguing flaw that he wasn't even sure the main designer knew of.

Amusingly the shotgun had fared better. Looking it over in comparison, the vision had come through with more clarity. While they'd both been made by the same hands, the shotguns vision had just required appropriate power and throughput. The shotgun was obviously done by the junior designer. It'd been done properly by the manufacturers. Three hands had handled the mech and it had made a mess that was only apparent in the end.

Maudlin thoughts aside, ripping it all apart showed him what an expert mech really meant. It wasn't just cost. It was optimization using money and exotic resources. No expense was spared and everything was aligned to the pilot. The weapon went above and beyond. The armor was exquisite. This was a weapon of war made double.

Bolt added a few mental changes to that design he carried in his head still. He still wanted a proper expert mech for Lilly, and he'd use this to fuel that plan further. She'd likely want to keep Dowry, but that mech was limited and would become more so as time would progress. She needed a proper one.

Left with parts and destroyed dreams, Bolt looked over the destroyed expert mech and then wrote down his notes and observations. He'd learned some, but not enough. He moved onto the other one. The swordsman. This would tell him more.

The swordsman mech was an Empties mech. You could tell that just based off the crosses in a few areas. It had been with holy fervor. The construction was close to perfect, with only a few flaws here and there because their enthusiasm had overcome their technical skill. The user had used a two handed sword that could be set aflame. The sword hadn't survived intact, and the entire length was ruined. Bolt could see the concept, and the power. It was very likely that was what it had led to the mech's doom.

He could trace the damage between the two and see the battle as he stripped the armor and the parts. The striker had gone first. He'd unloaded every weapon into the Swordsman, and it'd done nothing. Then he'd activated something, and they'd moved. Steady chipping and damaging to his opponent, and then they'd entered the cave. The Swordsman had caught up then. He'd struck once, twice, and the Striker had brought down the entire cave on them. Perhaps he assumed he'd be able to leave before the end? Bolt couldn't say an expert would cause such an amateur mistake as to kill himself accidentally in a cave-in.

The design itself was interesting as a contrast. They both used money to get the best performance. The design ethos was different. The sword had been everything for that mech. Every, single, part of it had been focused on making the weapon swing better. There was no subtly to that sort of design. There was no loss in focus. The only concession was a single weapon in the head of all things. That laser was meant to hinder mechs that kept at a range, that was it. There were four designers involved in it, but one real lead. The rest were just there to optimize the sword.

Now, the question came, how did Bolt apply this? Could he upgrade Dowry? Should he? These were good questions that he had to answer. He had to figure out what would be optimal. No one else in this mountain could decide. He could just replace the mechs parts again. They had experience in it by this point. It'd be almost as costly as building a new mech though.

Yet a wild idea came to him as he thought it over. Didn't Dowry just adjust herself internally? The nanomachine core that he'd put in was highly versatile after all. He'd been sort of lowballing the system in the initial creation to keep cost down. The system itself was meant to be a dynamic nanomachine factory. The recent self adjustment the mech had done made him think that he could push that system more. The only reason it'd been so restricted was the lack of exotics to fuel it. He had those materials available in the form of the disassembled mechs right in front of him... Recycling things was an old hat. He'd really just need to process these mechs and adjust the programming some wouldn't he? A lot of the theoretical work was already proven.

Putting thought into practice was easy. Having Dowry brought in was just a matter of getting a few techs to bring the mech over. Placing a few parts in the processor and adjusting the programming was also relatively simple. Bolt wasn't trying to change the process. He was trying to have the mech upgrade itself. Most of the changes were already there. Lilly could resonate with these materials. He just needed to get them laced into Dowry's systems using the nanomachines.

Concept wise it was easy. Implementation wise it was extremely difficult. This was slow, painstaking work. Bolt had to program each change, feed a minute portion of the exotics into the processor, watch the change, and then adjust as needed. In a way it was getting back to the mech's roots. Dowry had started off as different parts as Ghoul. They'd unified her design, but her original design had always been a bit of a mishmash. Now he was adding more things. The blackbox programs helped here and there. Bolt was able to pick them apart and refine them as he worked and watched them in action. There were still one or two left once he was done, but he was happy to say most of it was leashed now. (This was a very good thing. Machine learning had a tendency to go into suboptimal or dead end solutions if it wasn't directed.)

Dowry still wasn't a complete expert mech, but she was pretty close when he was finished. He still needed to select a resonant material to give her that extra oomph for when she needed it. Lilly could use the mech without breaking her now though, and Bolt was fairly sure that she could eat expert mechs to repair and upgrade herself further. Which would probably make things a bit weird when it happened.

For now he kept that under wraps and wouldn't put it in the documentation. So far as the outside world was concerned, Bolt had just upgraded her with salvaged parts. He'd tell Lilly, but he wouldn't write it down anywhere. Some things needed to be kept secret. Let people think he'd half assed the upgrade. No one needed to know the truth.

 

[lost star]

Wedding traditions varied extensively based off local planetary culture. For the people of the planet they called Rust Bucket, it was very simple. The couple shared a room and said they were married. Sometimes there was a party before or after. If they were very formal they had someone who handled religious matters bless them. The traditions were typically survive first, stick with the person you had kids with, and don't be a damned asshole to your family.

Bolt and Lilly had already made their promises in private. The party they had afterwards was not for them or their family. It was for politics. It was probably the largest native party in decades as well, and it had a little under five hundred people attending it. Most of those attendees were just support structure for the main leaders of each faction attending. It wasn't like there was a functional high class on the planet for the locals. The Wrench Rats would explicitly deny being 'high class.' Their recent fortune non-withstanding, they worked and bled for a living.

At the very least Bolt's family had been able to host something resembling respectable to the attendees. Thanks to the MTA's remodeling, they did have a proper ball room, and a food production facility that matched anything modern. They even had something special! It would have sounded very strange to people not in the know, but they were serving rations.

The obliquus rations came from a standard technology that was free of charge to download and build. They could be made from any sort of organic matter, and could be printed out with practically no resources. Food scarcity was very rare in this day and age. The MTA and CFA were frankly massive dictators that held humanity in a stranglehold, but they had explicitly tried to guarantee a few things with mass proliferations of specific technologies. The rations were one of those creations. They were best described as small miracles in specialized packages. Each one could last forever, and they aged spectacularly. They were a cornerstone to a surprisingly large amount of infrastructure, especially in space.

It was also not a lie to state that older ration packs were valuable. They were akin to old wines and cheeses in a way. A ten year old ration pack tasted better than a new made one, and the taste for century old ones was reportedly divine. This meant it wasn't uncommon to have little vaults here and there with the things in them. Not only were they solid time scaling investments, they were useful in an emergency!

The Wrench Rats had paid for and opened one of the fifty year old vaults for this party. It was an actual impressive display of wealth in a way. Everyone non-native considered it a fine thing to have for a party like this. The natives knew the more bitter truth of them. Old vaults were old because the previous owner had died for some reason. There was a grim and rarely said truth in serving the older stuff. They were very likely serving a dead person's last resort. Not that any of the rats would tell anyone attending the party that. The locals did know some things didn't need to be said. There were some attitudes that were strange and different even for them.

What wasn't different was the way things had to be arranged. As the main leading force behind this sort of thing Bolt and Lilly had to be front and center. Dressed in something rather gaudy that blended several styles together, they were both smiling and greeting the guests as if they wanted to be there. It was pretty obvious they didn't, but it was also obvious they were making an effort. That was enough for the attendees. (Some sympathized, but also knew this was a prime chance to make connections.)

Bolt was not social. He was probably the opposite of social. He'd answer things straight out if asked and didn't care to look into motives. Lilly was perhaps too social on contrast. She could pick apart a person's motivations with a few words and her conversations were either vapid as she put on airs, or too penetrating. Frankly it should have made the party a disaster, but the two of them had managed to play off one another and as an expert, Lilly was actually given more than a few allowances.

Most of what they did was greet and exchange information. Banal, boring, and predictable. A few conversations stood out. One was with Venerable Shin.

"You know, it is not common for experts to get married." The expert noted after introductions. He glanced at Bolt with an inquisitive eye, trying to find what drew the girl to him. "Especially not to designers. We travel in very different fields."

"You'd think it'd be more, not less." Lilly observed and hugged her now husband's arm with a warm expression.

Shin shook his head in a negative. "No, we as a group tend to be dedicated to piloting and nothing else. Long hours in the cockpit, risky missions, and so on. Likewise designers hone their logic and try to divorce themselves from emotion as they spend hours inside a lab. I cannot see your marriage lasting, if you'll forgive my rudeness, but at the same time I hope it succeeds. It is a contradiction I apologize for inflicting on you."

"I choose what I want." Lilly rebutted with words that she considered an immutable fact.

"If I'm inside a lab all day I get antsy." Bolt's response was less certain but more matter of fact. "Also, that logic thing is some strange mindset fashion, not a requirement." At least based off what he'd seen for designers. Bolt made a face as he recalled what he'd heard of it. "Can't say I like it. Feels less like logic and more slaving yourself to a religion that you made up."

Shin let out a small laugh and shook his head. "That is a way of seeing it, but let us not bring down the occasion more. Lilly, some of the moves you made were inspired. Bolt, your mech designs are still very rough, but the potential there is apparent. I very much look forward to seeing more." The expert gave a small bow to them both.

The conversation moved onto the various tactics Lilly had used. Bolt himself couldn't follow most of the discussion, but he got the general gist. Lilly had both gotten lucky and played her luck the best she could in the situation. Dowry's specific configuration had made it all possible though, and apparently Shin wanted a few mechs with her design. Bolt didn't see a reason not to create a production variant of Ghoul, but he also didn't want to commit to anything at a party either. Fortunately Shin didn't press, and then they moved on.

After some time Bolt and Lilly split off to speak with people in a more individual fashion. Bolt ended up speaking with the sole senior mech designer at the party, Travis. The older man was a sharp contrast to Chen. He didn't put on airs and was remarkably normal in behavior. Snacking on a few non-ration refreshments and keeping out of the way of most of the others.

"We're very likely going to work together soon." Travis didn't spend time on small talk. "I know for a fact my Lord is speaking with your father about a trade of sorts. I'll be working on your Dowry and likely Cerberus."

Bolt felt his eyebrows raise and he nodded slowly. "That seems 'bout right. I've progressed Dowry best I could, but I don't know resonant materials."

"You wouldn't. It requires senior and above." The senior designer responded simply and with little care. "The big thing we need is a proper resonating material, but I believe there's already one that we can use that's known to work with ASMAS and your pilot. It will allow for rapid repair and refinement and should work with the existing design with minimal adjustments and is relatively cheap, which will be needed because the ASMAS is a hungry thing when used."

That sounded relatively simple and would fit with the existing theme. "I don't see why we wouldn't use it then."

"I'll forward you the details and what I'll need. Expect it to take a few hours. Frankly, were it an expert I'm working with I'd insist on having more involvement, but these are unusual circumstances." Travis wiped his fingers off on a napkin and set his plate down. "Cerberus will take more of my time. You will be providing a good fifty of them to us, and I'm explicitly being ordered to focus on that."

"We're selling them already?" Bolt asked with surprise.

"Negotiations are ongoing, but that is within my predictions. Put very bluntly, Lord Selah despises you and your family. He will work with you out of self interest anyway. He' rather predictable in many ways." Travis laced his fingers in front of himself as he spoke. "I will be leaving his service within the year, so this does not harm me by saying it. You are a promising young designer with a unique look on mech design and a lot of potential. This will make you enemies. Be prepared for it."

"Ah." Bolt breathed out. That was quite the obvious warning. It was also not surprising. "I'm hoping that we can do that." He answered eventually in lieu of something better.

"Also keep in mind that Vesia is not united despite the face it shows to others. Your father likely knows this. He managed to get this party arranged after all. Despite how it looks, this is a rather impressive feat. He has leverage that I'm not aware of." Travis gave a shrug and began to walk off. "We will speak more on mech design later. It would not be appropriate to get into it here and now."

Bolt was looking forward to that. He was not looking forward to anything else. The future did not seem good despite the recent victories. Not that it had looked rosy before, but it was one thing to know that and another to be almost blatantly told you'd be in a war in a few years. Then again, that wasn't really new. The planet had always known war.

His grim thoughts were stopped from spiraling by Lilly. In this case it was because she'd gathered together a few pilots and was talking about something relevant to both of them. Expeditions. Getting money.

"Travel time is one issue, but the big one isn't that. It's finding your niche and exploiting it." One of the pilots was in the middle of an explanation. "Most mercs specialize. It's kind of like hunting or fishing. You look for the best prey that has the least amount of hunters around."

"Yeah, and what would Lilly's specialization be?" Another pilot asked with amusement as he gestured to the woman. "Building from the ground up is nice in that you can decide what you want, but you also have to build from the ground up."

"Thinking scavenging actually." The expert pilot gave her input casually.

The other pilots made a few noises of confusion. "Why?" Was the question.

"Bolt's family specializes in that." Lilly explained as Bolt came up and she pulled him close. "Also, we got the technical knowhow for that! Just need a good spot for an early payday! And probably the ships to get there and back."

"You can hire them till you get an in house group. Ain't that expensive if it's nearby." One of the men advised and then exchanged looks with the others. "Closest thing that comes to mind is the Cold Grave. You all remember that?"

"Ooooh." Came various groans of disgust.

"Cold Grave?" Lilly asked the obvious question with a cute head tilt and wide eyes.

"Nasty, nasty place. Non-experts get issues after a few days and can go mad after a few weeks. Got loads of graveyards. Was an old alien battlefield. You still get people trying for it cause the MTA and CFA lost ships there and there's rumors of them still being hidden there." Someone explained. "It's actually kinda close because of this planet's quirks. Anyone actually been there?"

"I have. Lasted two days before we started hearing whispers and pulled out. Colder than the icy hells, with barren halls big enough for mechs to walk through. Deep tunnels and some twisted architecture that really makes it hard to map." A man spoke up with a distant look. "We saw some ruins from old expeditions, but didn't have an expert to ward off the madness so couldn't get much. Had to fight some stone monster things. Apparently old alien defenses. Weren't much to speak about, but they didn't add to the welcome."

It was a lead that Lilly focused on immediately. Bolt couldn't say he liked the implication, but at the same time it would theoretically work. That was assuming they could get the manpower and transportation for it.

 

[lost star]

Lord Selah was less irritated now than he had been before the blasted farce of a contest. He was still very irritated. His personally groomed and funded mech designer had officially sent in his desire to retire from service, citing the failure of his design in the contest. He would be out of a designer before the year ended now.

As much as the lord wanted to dispute this, he couldn't. The designer had very technically failed, and refusing the resignation would cause social implications with a few of his more vocal allies. Selah disliked it. Travis had done his job well aside from this mishap. Losing him was a blow. At least the man was being careful to leave a replacement. Sure it was a journeyman, but they were an experienced, and loyal one. Selah had nothing to complain about there.

It still felt like something was going wrong somewhere. He was being forced into positions he wouldn't typically take, and did not like it at all. The timing was suspect too. Why inform him now while this farce of a party was winding down? After he'd accepted the 'gift' even. Fifty dog mechs from a young designer were not big prizes, but they were prizes. Buying them at cost of manufacturing was an absolute steal. Paying for them with a few hours of designer time was just economical. Travis had actually indicated agreement with the deal. Yet he'd still offered his resignation.

So very strange. Hopefully his spies would get something back soon. There was movement in the background that he wasn't seeing. Without that he had to react to things based off his initial impressions. There was a background player. He needed them identified before he could make more strident decisions.

"Is there something not to your liking?" The words brought Selah back to the present and he gave the peasant in front of him a blank look.

"No, this is acceptable." Fifty year old rations were actually expensive enough that they didn't offend his palate. They hadn't reached the extreme seasoning that rations could get but it was acceptable for an event like this. The wine was less fitting. It simple manufactured stuff. Only the fact that it was a high quality kept it acceptable rather than offensive. "I am merely contemplating the future."

Dealing with the designer's father was probably part of the irritation. He wanted the man dead, not in front of him. The man had no sense of fear or deference when speaking, and Selah had to continuously interact with him! He'd have someone acting like this back home whipped!

Salah let none of that show on his face. He'd have to rest tomorrow. He was obviously getting too stressed. He'd interacted with uppity peasants without nearly as much frustration before. He'd even praised one or two! Ordering someone whipped was only for extreme cases. This wasn't extreme.

"Well I hope that future is bright! It most certainly is for me and my family." The man smiled warmly and the noble forcefully stomped down on all his emotions.

Lord Selah inclined his head in courteous agreement. "Indeed. Not many people can boast of having an expert join them. I look forward to seeing how it goes." It'd certainly be an example of something in a few years. He'd be sure to see about hiring one or two mercs or pirates to keep them on their toes.

"Oh it will be something special I can say that. But that's only part of it. We're hoping you prosper some as well. Are you sure you don't want any other mechs? I'm afraid we can't do another discount after today." The man asked with a salesman's disappointment.

"No, no. Fifty of those dogs are fine. It is a fine gift." And damnit all, it was. The prestige of Hellfire missiles was something he'd love to rub into that moron of a neighbor's face. Getting them at cost was a steal. Doubly so because his personal designer would make sure they looked like the family breed. "I'm afraid the rest of your catalog is not refined enough for me to be enticed by your other offerings." A bit of a snub there, barely even an insult, especially because it was true.

"My apologies for assuming. I should have guessed that you would accept nothing more than the best. It's a small miracle that my child is able to produce one mech that fits your high standards." The junkmonger gave a small bow of his head. "Could I get you some more refreshments as another apology?"

"Oh, let him get his own." A very unwelcome voice made Selah grip on his wine glass and then try to relax. He gave the nun a bland look.

"Greetings Abbess." Lord Selah greeted the woman.

"Hello Lord." The woman gave a small inclination of the head, a gesture between equals, and a very deliberate insult that she knew she was giving.

An abbess of the Empties was educated extensively in politics. They were the mind behind the institutions. The force that kept them united and kept the nation in line. They were pretty faces hiding political monsters in human skin. She knew exactly how to speak to a noble from Vesia, and how to insult them directly to their face.

Amusingly, this soothed his irritation somewhat. This was a normal interaction whenever he had the displeasure to meet with one. "I expected you to speak with the expert after her victory." He spoke. "She was quite impressive against your forces." Translation, she broke them utterly and your people were pathetic.

"Oh, I've already given my congratulations. The young couple are so obviously out of their depth though." The woman turned to the couples father. "They will need some further guidance that I'd be happy to offer."

"They're young and just married. Let them have their honeymoon." The man deflected with a grin as he got another drink from a nearby automated server. "Though really, from what I hear it's going to be a working honeymoon. I swear that girl doesn't know how to stay still."

"Yes, she seems quite fascinated with that expedition idea." The abbess shook her head. "Well adventurous youths will be youths. I hope she doesn't get burned from it. That angle of thought is very dangerous."

"If I recall right, that's a lesson you have to learn on your own." The junkmonger replied without a change in expression.

The words made the woman's eyes sharpen. "That is a lesson frequently taught by our people."

"And one they still don't learn." Lord Selah spoke up then. "How many times has it been taught on this very planet?"

"The thoughts were that it was better this planet than something more important. As a nexus for FTL it is quite valuable, but we both know it's out of the way enough that no one really cares about it. It's a paradoxical prize. Too valuable to leave, but too useless to keep." The abbess countered back with a small and smug grin. "We've always cared for the people on it, just not the place itself."

"Ah yes, free transport off and into one of your vaunted and austere religious institutes." The noble said with disdain. "It's no wonder they like to stay here, at least here the dirt is honest. There you'd rub it in and call it holy."

"Better than being chained to a land and suffering the whims of self important swine." The abbess's grin didn't change as she spoke.

"I do believe that would be considered dueling words." Lord Selah said very calmly as he pushed away his glass and cutlery.

"Well I wouldn't stop ya all. That truce we're talking about ain't starting up just yet. Gotta get your licks in." The junkmonger interjected without a trace of fear. "Want me ta have the couple officiate it? I'm sure they'd love a good mech battle."

"No, no. I'm not a pilot, and it'd be a pity to mar an event with violence." The abbess backed down easily. "We shall speak of something else. My apologies Lord Selah." She gave a proper bow.

The noble was quite aware that the words were empty, but he also couldn't outright demand a duel now. "What else could we possibly discuss?!"

"How about that truce? Still ok with it?" The peasant said.

"We will have to bring it back to our people, but a preliminary truce of five years and rights to the planet are so small that it will be trivial." The abbess said. "Provided you abide by the rules."

"Taxes will be paid on all goods shipped to and from your nations."

Lord Selah gave a small harumph. "They had better." He and the others nations were in full agreement about that.

Let the junkmonger ship whatever he wanted. Having a small neutral area used to ship goods between nations discretely was, well mildly acceptable if he could get money from it. It'd make this planet more than a hole you threw mechs into. He couldn't imagine the man would make much profit though. He was getting taxed importing and exporting, and that would become ruinous quickly.

And here he was thinking like a merchant now. The irritation came back and Selah made a note that he was going to take a week off after this. Perhaps at that high class resort a few jumps away? It would be a bit expensive, but he needed it.

 

[lost star]

So, the wedding was done. The honeymoon was sort of ongoing. It wasn't like they wanted to head out and visit the beach. Also a honeymoon implied they had the time and ability to do something other than work. They really didn't. Not that Bolt and Lilly cared. They shared a room and things were good on that part. No need to elaborate more. (Bolt was a tiny bit tired after every morning, no big deal at all!)

Things were a little relaxed now. Not quite fully relaxed, but a general truce for the planet was in the works and people were mildly hopeful that there wouldn't be another damned war over some barren earth. It was a general hope. The natives didn't hold any expectations. Hope for the best and plan for the worst was their motto, and the worst would be another few years of metal giants stomping and trying to kill them.

In light of planning for the worst, Lilly was starting to train and recruit. Her ascension had somehow made her worse at directing people but very good at ferreting out reasons and desires. She'd gotten a few lieutenants in light of that first. Then she'd started to fill out their roster. It was an ongoing and slow process. They had a small pool to pull from and even less they could trust.

Bolt was working on a smattering of smaller problems. One of them involved working with Travis for a few days. It was proving to be an interesting interaction.

"I'll have to ask for privacy while I adjust Dowry, but we can work on Cerberus in your workshop." The senior began as he was escorted into the area. "You may inspect it afterwards naturally, but the work in itself is considered a trade secret you are not initiated into yet."

"Sounds good. Hope you don't mind the lack of decoration. Can't say I've used it much yet." The young man said while leading.

There were several designing rooms in the mountain actually. A big one and a few little ones. They each had their own computer and were air gapped. Bolt got the idea just from their configuration. The big one was for large projects, while the little ones were for private stuff. He'd used the big one a grand total of once. It had a very impressive computer and designing simulation. However, seeing such a large room filled with nothing but chairs and monitors was off-putting enough that he'd not felt the desire to use it again.

"Whomever designed these was dedicated to the future." Travis noted as he took a seat without a trace of discomfort. "I have a less impressive main work area and my budget is not paltry." He looked around. "I assume you do not have plans to add more people at the moment?"

Bolt winced. "Ya would be right there." He admitted. It still felt more than a little empty with just two people.

"Trust issues I would assume. You are very young. Take your time and educate in house." The older man advised and started up the program. "Oh, thank you for your foresight. The blueprint is already loaded." He immediately began to change a few lines. "Do not expect a massive increase in performance. My contribution will be limited by necessity. Lord Selah wants the breed the dog looks like changed and any quote sabotage unquote to be found."

"What?" The young designer couldn't help his offended tone.

"It's not uncommon for young designers to be pressured into doing it, or to believe it's a good idea. When I was younger I was asked to deliberately make a faulty part for instance. My personal advice is to nod and neglect to do it if you have to. We are mech designers. Making anything deliberately shoddy is just as damaging to ourselves as it is to others." Travis explained simply and gave Bolt a look. "Those who do not design will not understand this." He emphasized.

It took a moment for Bolt to get it. Selah had likely ordered something done to Dowry. Not that he'd allow that to happen, but it was very good to understand. It did bring up a topic he had to address.

"This isn't likely going to be the last time I need help for resonant materials for an expert mech." Bolt admitted. "I expect it'll be harder after this."

"It likely will. It won't be impossible. There are mercenary groups with experts that manage to get things done after all. Your most affordable option is finding a few unattached seniors and doing a few favors. Your best option is to pay the MTA. They'll charge you an excessive amount, but they do give the option and will ensure spectacular work." Travis paused in his examination of the design and documentation. "Why have you not patented the generators?"

"Why would I?" Bolt asked in confusion. "They're just standard shit that anyone can plop in. Ain't like I did something different."

"You did do something that another designer could do. They did not. You thought of it. You produced a viable variant of a standard component that works with substandard fuel and handles dust better than normal. You did this with an absolutely trivial loss in all over performance. This is valuable." Travis tapped on the screen. "Submit your variant as an individual part. Also, do the same with the sensor system. Actually give me a moment." He tapped again and brought up the other blueprints.

Bolt started to look through the process of getting parts approved. This was going to suck paperwork wise, he could already tell. He should as advised though. Money wasn't getting tight, but he did need every scrap of it to get proper licensing for more parts. They were in an awkward crunch of being just successful enough to want to expand, but not so successful they could buy everything they wanted.

"Patent the mist generation from the Drowned Man, the shoulder sensors from Zombie, axe on Berserker, sensor and weapon system on Undertaker, and also send the adjustments you did to Dowry to the company that makes ASMAS. While I'm at it, I'd say adjust the cockpit back to standard position in the Berserker. That trick works when it's rare, not when it's standard, and some pilots reflexively ignore the cockpit area. They could accidentally hit it with your design. The other changes are good for pilot survivability and I commend them. If you could somehow segment that into an independent system you could likely patent that too."

The young designer wrote that down quickly.

Travis paused and laughed at himself. "Ah, forgive me. I'm treating you like one of my students. Not that I regret giving the advice, but you aren't one of mine. Another lesson I suppose. As you grow, you will want to teach. It is the best way to improve in my opinion." He informed the other designer.

"I'm glad for the lessons anyway. Prob my first real one from a designer." Bolt admitted with a bit of gratitude. "Thank you."

"Hah. I would ruin you if you were my student for real. Part of your skill is that you are forging your own path. Full instruction would be actively detrimental." The senior patted his screen. "So I'll refrain from giving too much advice. I'll explain my reasoning and call it done. Mechs are automatically patented as part of the process when you get them approve. However, you can separate certain parts out as individual components for sale as well. That's where the very big money is. You could sell a hundred mechs or ten thousand parts. You'll probably double your income with just those patents, and there's a decent chance the company that makes ASMAS will give you a specific variant just for your Ghoul line as well as give you a permanent discount for further purchases."

That made Bolt stare. "Excuse me?"

Travis actually guffawed at the look he was getting. "Ah, I love seeing that look! Yes, even junior work can be worth money to the big names. In this case I have some insider information. The ASMAS is someone's baby. It's an expensive, niche, and rarely used product. There is a reason you can buy it even as a third rate nobody, if you'll forgive the classification. Your work on that Ghoul made it viable for an expert candidate. Some more work between you and that company and there's a decent chance you can make it viable for everyone."

Bolt turned back to his station. "Huh."

"You might get something similar with Cerberus." The senior turned back to his station and switched to the mech again. "Master Jeanne is very focused on her little corner of the galaxy and tends to notice when her products are used. The Hellfire Missiles were considered a flop commercially, so the design being used in a mech that could theoretically be a hit is of interest to her."

"I can't see that as being a good thing." The young designer muttered.

"Drawing a master's attention is inevitable. If you use more of her designs she will message you. Be polite but otherwise assume her agenda is advancing her own interests." The older man advised. "At master level designers are more focused on their own projects than you or mundane politics. There's a reason she doesn't lead the nation. I do commend your work with Cerberus by the way. It is very good for your level and I can see a very clear vision around it."

Bolt grinned at that surprising news. "Really?"

"Yes. You have the potential to be one of the greats. Keep honing your designs and focusing on your philosophy when designing." Travis said. "I will be leaving the area soon, but I will most certainly be watching your work with great enthusiasm." (Left unsaid was wanted to be comfortably out of the blast zone.)

It was rather gratifying to hear. It meant something from a senior.

"Now, onto changes. We'll be adjusting the form factor, and making the missiles slightly different. My suggestion is we reduce the missile count slightly so we can have a missile selector added to the internal mechanisms. That will allow a variable loadout. Other than that I can give it a few minor tweaks here and there to increase performance." Travis explained as he worked.

"Your specialty is..." Bolt didn't say familiar. He recognized the work from the expert mech he'd demolished.

Travis didn't notice. "Officially it's something like small scale reinforcement. I call it, little things make big changes." The senior designer explained. "I'm doing a bare minimum here as ordered. This is pure technical knowledge. You'll understand the difference as you grow." He tapped at the changes.

Bolt nodded quickly and watched as things were changed. It was a very good lesson. One that he was quite sure that Lord Selah didn't know he was getting.

 

[lost star]

Lilly was ill suited for certain parts of leadership. She'd learned that before her ascension and had it double emphasized afterwards. Her ethos was that of freedom and choice. She could not command someone to do something in light of that. She could still lead.

This felt like splitting hairs and semantics, but it made sense in her head. If people chose to follow her, she was fine with that. She could convince them. She couldn't demand they follow. She also just, well couldn't really direct them in battle. That was a different matter, and more a personal failing. She got too wrapped up in her own situation and could not properly estimate how to have people fight properly. One could not be good everywhere.

This was where the magics of delegation came into play though! Lilly's new mercenary group was controlled by her. She had more than a few subordinates who were specifically going to be stepping into direct command roles. They'd organize things as needed over time. She'd just need to provide direction and purpose.

Admittedly this was all theory. Right now organization was in the beginning phases and really just needed a framework. They only had about fifty pilots. Lilly was vetting about a hundred more. Most of them teenagers and younger. The older pilots had left, were shit, or were committed to defending very specific areas. They had a few, but the younger ones had actual potential and the desire to join. So perhaps one hundred fifty after a year with maybe one hundred being pilots worthy of more than the minimum. This would increase over time, but they were starting with the bare minimum at the moment. The planet's population was both sparse and extremely wary. Even having an expert didn't mean much to them ultimately. It just meant someone had a bigger stick. The little stick still killed.

Support personal were far easier to gather up. They numbered about three hundred at present time. Technicians, logistic support, personal support, and so on. Bolt's mother had helped arrange it all. Most mercenary companies skimped on this sort of thing. Lilly had no reason to, and frankly found that stupid. Non-pilots were cheap comparatively. Sure it took a bit more to transport them if needed, but they had an immense amount of space here for the setup! It was one of the benefits of their situation. Having a mountain fortress, a surprisingly educated workforce, and what amounted to a manufacturing business meant that they could handle a lot of extra hands not related to piloting.

One of the reasons merc companies frequently skimped on support personnel was because they weren't always in use. Money wise it was frequently cheaper to hire temps in the short term. Here they'd always have something to do. It smoothed a lot of things out really.

As did the fact that they had Bolt's designs to use. There were still a few gaps here and there in their lineup, but the seven mechs he'd designed covered enough that they could create a general tactical doctrine. They would need a consistent and cheap rifleman and a decent striker to really round out things, but that could wait. Cerberus filled the ranged options just fine, and they weren't particularly vulnerable to skirmishers either. That'd change over time, but right now they had a solid line of mechs to choose from.

Well they would when they had more mech pilots. The majority of their forces right now were Zombies. A few Cerberus were coming online and would be added shortly, and they'd probably increase in number as people got used to them, but Zombies would be the highest amount of mechs they had. Zombies were easy to pilot. The next one up was Cerberus, which had been designed to work with low skill people. The Drowned men would go to the average skilled pilots and were suitable enough as a general mech to serve there.

Lilly would need to recruit people for the Undertakers. There were no pilots able to handle it as it needed to be used, and they'd have to be trained specifically for command. That was a tall undertaking, but possible if they found someone the proper age. It wasn't like she needed elites. She just needed competence. The Undertaker mechs worked fine with mediocre pilots.

The oddest blip in her current forces were the Berserkers. She had five to six depending on assignments. One of the men would shift from the Berserkers to the Maidens if needed. He was technically her best pilot and he was a familiar man to her, Sticks. For some reason a lot of the early pilots had gravitated towards it, and it was a decent mech once you got the tricks down.

Frankly had she been a normal expert this would have been despair inducing. Sticks was, well putting it frankly, so average it was practically an artform. He followed orders. He knew how to pilot a lot of mechs. He was not good at it. His best and only virtue was loyalty, which was why her father had trusted him on a heavy. Him being the best of her forces made the budding group a genuine joke.

All of this being said, her first real order was to put Sticks full time on the defensive team and stuck him exclusively to the Shining Shrine Maiden. This was a waste of the Maiden's capabilities, but Sticks would do his job until his employers death. You wanted that on what amounted to permanent sentry duty. You also needed someone that could handle the full capability of that mech. Shining Shrine Maidens were not easy to pilot, despite their role. Sticks was the only experienced pilot capable of using everything about them. He couldn't do it well, but with practice he'd be competent enough to be an obstacle to anyone attacking. Lilly had to work with what she had.

Being forced to work with what she had didn't mean that she had to be satisfied with it. After her general review and basic orders Lilly began running her people through their paces.

She made another discovery then. She was actually pretty good at training people. It felt a bit weird to discover, but her intuition let her tell where people were slacking, where they weren't, and how they could push themselves. It was fun even. She enjoyed teaching the younger pilots the best. They had less bad habits. She could still tolerate the older ones. It was a skill she'd decided she wanted to hone.

New talent or not, training and getting things working would take time. Lilly wanted to go on that expedition. Currently she figured it'd take a little more than a year to get enough arranged to make it possible. A year's worth of training, gathering resources, and getting funds stockpiled.

The little girl in her wanted to do it now. The adult she should be said no, they needed time. She didn't want to go out and end up a popsicle because she'd skimped on heating. It grated, like it had when she'd had nothing to do. She needed more. Long nights of fun weren't cutting it. (Also Bolt was looking a bit tired.) Training wasn't cutting it.

That was what led her back to the simulation pod and speaking with the Iron Spirit mods. It was very silly. The game literally couldn't keep up with her at all anymore. She still arranged for the ability to connect to anyone anywhere and logged in anyway.

She'd liked training people. She'd made a few casual friends in the game. Experts advice was highly, highly prized. So, well, she was going to use the game to have fun in a way that was probably going to get someone in trouble. She was going to corrupt a whole lot of children for kicks and giggles. The Undead Legion would RISE!!!

As silly as it was, it scratched an itch she didn't even know she had and let her focus on her other duties. Something about helping kids become good pilots made her very happy. She didn't focus on that thought too hard. Hopefully Pa would be able to find more pilots. She also needed to see about getting a few training mechs built or bought. Bolt could probably do it, but the boy was getting a tad stretched in his duties.

They really needed a lot of everything didn't they? That wasn't even greed talking, it was just facts.

 

[lost star]

Adapting something for a different climate was a surprisingly involved process. The Cold Grave was an extremely hostile environment. One where the temperature was below freezing as a standard, and could dip low enough to freeze a person's lungs if they tried to inhale without protection. It went without saying that their mechs needed some adjustment to function properly there. Not much, but some.

Bolt had a hand in that. He had a hand in adapting the Dowry's design for a production Ghoul model, dubbed Scavenger Ghoul. He had to make variants of Cerberus, because that model was surprisingly popular for some reason. He had a lot of little things like that. He was in essence being stretched in so many directions that he couldn't spare time for personal projects.

Thankfully a lot of this was temporary. Some of it could be delegated once he did the initial steps to verify things too. The cold weather proofing was just coating the mechs with some particular sprays and changing out some internal coolants. It required his assistance to make the plan, but his family could do it. Licensing his parts was just doing paperwork.

He was not going to start up any new projects even when he cleared up some time. He had a few on the docket. They were in order, Lilly's new expert mech, a rifleman, and a skirmisher. The reason for that was simple. Bolt felt like he'd reached a sort of plateau. He could make more designs. It'd be easy. It would not be something new. It would not be an improvement. Bolt felt like he was at the cusp of something important and needed a challenge. He needed a focus. He needed more information.

What was a mech to him? What unified his mechs together? They were philosophical questions that he had never actually asked himself. He wasn't sure he could. All his mechs had come from necessity and practicality. The whimsy had been in his design and ambition.

A poking on his cheek made Bolt look up from his, frankly banal paperwork. "You're thinking." Lilly said.

"Yes?" Bolt replied back slowly and with confusion. "I'm always thinking."

"No, no. This isn't your hum hum thinking. This is you er." Lilly scrunched up her face and then draped herself over his lap. "It kinda feels sorta like how I advanced."

"Designers don't turn into experts." The designer in question said with bemusement.

"No, no. You aren't, but it feels that way too. You gotta focus and be pure though." The expert got up and grabbed at the sides of his head and made a face.

"What are you." Bolt blinked. He felt a very minor tingle. "Whatever you're doing I don't think it's doing what you want."

"Stupid willpower, do it right." Lilly muttered and let her arms drop. "Your thinking messy thinky things. I dunno how designers work, but I do know I had to cut parts out of myself to get better. I think for you, you need to focus and be sure you have what you want and nothing else. That's how it felt like with the other designers."

"You do know how alarming cutting parts of yourself out sounds from this end right?" Bolt asked the obvious question.

The woman nodded and took a seat across from him. "I'm greedy. I got almost everything still. Pretty sure that makes it harder to advance, but I'll figure out something. I won't give us being me." The willpower inherent in that statement felt almost physically solid.

"I'll help that however I can." Bolt replied before tapping on his pad and then setting it to the side. "So, I have to think about what I want?" He got back to the initial subject.

"You're the designer." Lilly pointed out before reclining. "Don't they have specialties? You take that and do something with it."

"They do. I couldn't say what mine is yet, which is probably the problem." Bolt chuckled at himself. "If I were to tell you want I'm good at, it's taking things apart and learning from them. Ain't like that's a specialty in my mechs though. That's just how I learn."

"You make them warm too." The pilot pointed out.

"Even that isn't really a specialty. It's something another guy can do better. I'd assume a designer's specialty is something that they focus at above all else. I mean even the designers at my level had a focus and something they were good at."

Ando for instance. He'd been decent at armor. Good enough to teach Bolt a few things. Bolt had surpassed him, but that was a difference in ability, not in focus. Bolt was positive that Ando would still have things to teach him if they met again. That was what focus meant. Bolt was good at everything, and that was part of the issue.

"And you don't know what you're best at." Lilly guessed at his thoughts.

"I don't think it's even that. I just don't know what mechs mean to me." Bolt muttered as he picked at the idea.

Lilly frowned. "Ok, up!" She gestured to her husband.

Knowing well enough to follow along, the young man got to his feet. Lilly grabbed at him and pulled him past their couches and to the mediation mat she'd set into the room. Then, holding his hands she dropped down into a cross legged position.

"Meditation time!" She practically ordered.

With bemusement the young man took a seat across from her. "If you say so."

He was not good at this discipline. His mind raced too often to really do meditation. He could still do it, somewhat. The most he got out of it was spending time with Lilly truthfully. Just doing tasks together was their way of staying connected.

"Why did you build Ghoul?" Lilly's voice startled him out of his attempts at stillness. "Eyes closed, think on that. Tell me."

"Half of it was to impress a pretty girl." Bolt admitted easily, mildly bemused that this actually didn't disrupt the other girl. She was being pretty serious. "Half of it was because I wanted to make a proper mech."

"That works, but why did you build it the way you did. You probably could have gotten more unified parts right? You went out and tried to get the best you could, then added onto them. We both know the mouth was completely unnecessary." Lilly pointed out.

Here the answer was pretty easy. "It unified the look, and you deserved the best."

"Is your philosophy mechs that look good then?" Lilly asked back.

Bolt gave a small laugh and kept his eyes closed just barely. "No."

"Zombie then, what worked for that one? Why the head?"

"That was mostly funny."

Lilly squeezed his hands. "There were other ways to make it funny you know."

Bolt nodded. "Yes. Was still funny turning the head into a weapon."

"The Drowned Man. He turns water into mist doesn't he?" Lilly asked. "What gave you that idea?"

"I needed something that worked in the rain." Bolt responded easily.

"Dowry eats things and turns them into other things too right?"

"If you're trying to say my designer style is cannibalistic mechs I'm going to bite you." The young man said dryly, eyes still closed.

Lilly laughed. "Maybe tonight?" She said in a salacious tone before continuing. "Vermillion then. Why specifically did you make it so focused."

"It made sense for the format." Bolt replied back with a slight bit of exasperation before he took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm not sure we're getting somewhere."

"No, we are." The young woman said with a happy sound. "The others didn't do that. You cut the operation time very close you know. If I had hit someone who knew how to play defensive I would have lost. Why did you give up so much run time?"

"I probably could have gone with something standard. It made sense to use the space for more armor and more speed." Bolt answered after reviewing his thoughts at the time. "You were good enough to make use of that more, and the extra space made it easier to design for repairs."

"Your designs are focused towards a singular goal. You convert everything you can to that goal, is that right?" Lilly asked almost casually.

"I'd like to think that's good design." Bolt responded with a trace of confusion as to the line she was taking.

"What was Travis' specialty?"

"His was micro design. He specifically aligned smaller changes alongside a central focus to create a larger effect. I couldn't see it in action, but it had interesting implications in some ways." Bolt explained.

"So he wouldn't convert fuel space to give more armor like you did with Vermillion then?"

Bolt thought a moment. "I'm unsure." He had to answer honestly. "I don't know his style well enough to be sure."

"But if he didn't, that wouldn't be bad design right? It'd just be different design." Lilly pointed out.

"That's true."

The designer thought about it, and Lilly seemed content to let him think on it. His design ethos wasn't in cutting out things. It wasn't goal orientated either. That had just been a consequence of what he'd done so far. What would he design if he was to just make a mech? No, bad question. What did he focus on with mechs outside of theme. That was a mnemonic technique to help unify the design.

Actually there was a trace of something there. He'd grown up with junk mechs. That was taking parts of different mechs and unifying them. Recycling, converting, and unifying disparate parts. Focusing on making a functional mech that did it's job right.

"I do feel like I might have something, but it's not coherent." Bolt eventually concluded.

"Well, do I have to play twenty questions with that too?" Lilly asked.

Bolt shrugged as he thought. "I don't think so. I think I need to define it to myself more than anything else." And wouldn't that be a problem. "Ug, this is going to stall my plans for your next mech even more."

Lilly audibly perked up. "New mech, for me?"

"Dowry is a bit limited. This one would be a sort of counter to her counters." Bolt explained and opened his eyes to see his eager looking wife. "Likely a defensive thing."

"Seems like a good change of pace." Lilly gave his hands a squeeze. "What's the problem aside from your mind not cooperating?"

"It's stupid. There's a laser part from the laser company I won licenses off of. It's in the experimental branch of their parts. It's supposed to create a laser sword, but the thing lasts about a second." Bolt snapped his fingers for emphasis.

He'd gotten hung up on using the device for some bizarre reason. It was really stupid because the device was functionally useless. The light sword lasted for half a second and destabilized faster if something impacted them. Why he'd gotten interested in it he couldn't say. It was just a miniature forcefield combined with laser technology. The thought was to make a sword out of the forcefield and run a laser beam around it. Hence, laser sword.

The problem forcefields were hungry, hungry things. There was a reason they weren't mounted on mechs. As fortification aids they worked. As compact parts of a laser emitter they just burned out the emitter when more was added to it. The only reason it was theoretically possible was because the two technology were cousins so to speak.

"I can see why you want it. Laser sword!" Lilly's eyes practically sparkled at that thought. "But let me guess, it isn't possible?"

"No, not with our tech." Bolt admitted bluntly and groaned. "I swear I don't know why I want it, but I can't finish the design until it fits in."

It didn't even fit with his standard designs even. It was a laser! His strengths weren't in that area. He was getting better, but not enough to do something that a specialist wouldn't.

Lilly patted him on the back and the young man sighed. "Honestly it sounds like you have two blocks. Both ones you inflicted on yourself." The girl pointed out. "So here's what we'll do. We'll meditate together when we can, and we focus on defining your philosophy. Then you decide if that part is worth the hassle."

It was a plan in that it was something to do. Bolt didn't think it would solve what was going on though.

 

[lost star]

The Undead Legion was a very silly little clan in Iron Spirit. It had one requirement. You had to have an mech that looked like some sort of undead. There was a lot of leeway allowed if you weren't particularly rich in game. Painting it up properly was sometimes enough if there was some effort involved. Some people just had their mechs painted green with some highlights to make them look rotting. (They were kids after all.)

About one thing that everyone agreed on was that the Legion was for fun. No serious stuff allowed! Well, no serious stuff when they were doing clan activities. They did skirmishes where the goal was just to play around, every zombie pilot had corny jokes, and re-enacting horror movies was perfectly fine.

Jun liked that about the clan. He also liked leading it. As the duly appointed leader of one of the factions of the Undead Legion, he had responsibilities. Not many, it was a game people played to unwind. He still had responsibilities. This felt important. Shy, outside game Jun was just another pilot. Inside, he was SmashyMister, lieutenant to the important expert!

Not that he interacted much with Lilly nowadays. Despite their desires the expert didn't have an infinite amount of time. She had a lot of duties. She could spend an hour or two in game a day at best. He'd still consider her a mentor, even if she'd basically bullied him into an Undertaker. She gave advice freely in the time she had, and was always encouraging, even if that encouragement wasn't always conventional, or polite.

"Live first, kick ass second." Jun whispered to himself and giggled.

One Star Undertaker was nothing special. He lacked the jamming. His communication was pretty bad. His best feature was his cannon. He was still fun.

The best part about Bolt's creations was that his main line had mechs from one to five stars. This meant if you wanted to downgrade or upgrade, you could get the same mech. The performance was different, but the feel was the same. It was very rare for designers to bother with that. That was probably the core reason why the Legion was still going strong even without Lilly's constant presence.

"Helle, you're out of position." Jun called out. "Back!"

The zombie didn't seem to hear him. Instead trying to lung forward and swing its club at its opponent. The knight back stepped and then several riflemen started to fire from the side.

Jun didn't let that get him down. One star battles with kids were frankly messy. He watched it happen and then carefully aimed his cannon. The shot sprayed cold goop all over them and caused their fire rate and aim to decrease significantly. Fog formed from the secondary effect of his shot and he gave the zombie another command.

"Helle, step back." He repeated again, calmly.

The zombie seemed to realize the position it was in finally and moved back with shuffling steps. Fortunately that mech was pretty tough. It wasn't down, just broken in some parts. Perfectly acceptable for a match.

"Skellies you have a line open. Blind fire." The Undertaker pilot carefully stepped back and readied his cannon for another shot.

Skellies were basically riflemen painted white. They'd found a very thin rifleman model at one stars that was both perfect in looks for a skeleton and decent enough to fit into the theme. It wasn't the best, it wasn't the worst. It just had decent eyes and a semi-auto rifle. Perfect for new players who needed to just get familiar with mechs. You just ordered newbies to fire in a general direction and they'd hit something. The mech was a bargain bin bare-bones travesty that functioned well for one purpose. That was all it needed.

Jun was a commander by virtue of being the only person suited for it. He was not the best at it. His 'subordinates' weren't the best either. They were kids one and all, in the game by virtue of having money and free time. Iron Spirit and other simulator games were training wheels and games at the same time. It was a game you could play and convince your parents that you were doing something important. This, combined with other factors meant that they lost in the end.

The boy wasn't broken up about it. He'd tried. There was only so much you could do with inexperienced pilots. The truth was that without Lilly, their teams weren't that good. Bolt's mechs had decent synergy with one another, but that alone didn't give a grand and insurmountable advantage. It gave a little boost. That was it. There were plenty of other good designs out there that gave their own advantages too.

Helle was more emotional about it though. "Sorry Jun." She apologized after the battle and in the training area.

"No need to apologize. Did you have fun?" The pilot asked in return.

"Some. Zombie is kinda fun." Helle replied. "I don't have any good jokes down and he feels slow though. I don't think I'm zombie material."

"You're what, eleven? No personal name, or details, just age." Jun asked very calmly as he went over standard controls of his mech. Just general practice.

"Eleven and a half!" Helle corrected. "I liked Lilly's stuff. Is it true she's back? Did she really marry Bolt?! Did they really fight off that whole army like they're going to show in Rust to Riches?!"

Jun very carefully kept his amusement under lock and key. Rust to Riches was a movie that had been somehow greenlit and was based very loosely off Lilly and Bolt's experiences. They were minor celebrities now. Lilly found it absolutely hilarious apparently.

"According to her, it was even more." Jun informed the young girl. "And she does come by every now and again. She likes teaching some when she has time."

"Can-can I?" Helle's zombie shuffled some as the pilot's nerves transmitted through the mech.

Jun hummed. "There's a long list, but you can get on it." Long list was a bit of an understatement. It was two lists. One was a maybe. The other was 'has potential.' Both took time to get through that the expert didn't really have so he frequently had to act as a buffer. "You do need to find a mech you like first. Do you like Bolt's designs, or just want to imitate Lilly? There's a difference."

"Ummm." Helle shuffled some more. "I like the Maiden?"

Her and every other girl. That one was in the game as a six star though. A modern mech. Bolt had not made one to five star versions of it. "You'd have to build up to it. Artillery mechs are hard. So do you like it because it's pretty, or because you want to shoot it?"

"It's pretty." Helle said immediately.

"And you're piloting a zombie mech." Jun pointed out with a trace of amusement. They were thematically appropriate, not pretty.

Helle shuffled again and made a few noises that Jun couldn't interpret. Unfortuantely, as much as he tried to be a leader, he was still very young. He didn't know how to help here.

"Umm, was there any other mech you really liked?" He asked.

"Vermillion?" Was the immediate but uncertain reply.

"Of course." Her and everyone else. "Well, keep trying other mechs. My suggestion, and Lilly's too, is that you look for something that clicks with you. Everyone has certain habits that work with specific mechs." Jun advised as best he could.

Helle nodded. Fortunately aside from the minor problems, she was an ok pilot for her age. Nothing spectacular, but willing to at least work with people. That was a lot harder than it sounded. Most pilots had a serious case of tunnel vision when they started. Jun couldn't count the number of times a mech had died because someone had walked up behind them and shot them.

Jun did pass a request onto Bolt through Lilly. It hadn't been a serious one. This wasn't the first time Vermillion had been requested. The mech won looking spectacular. There were still clips of it moving being spread around months afterwards. He was very surprised to see it show up later in the store, with a few subtle changes that made it look a bit like it was on fire and burning to fit the undead theme.

(Bolt had seen the request, and actually spared some time to contact his friends still in the Serene Temples. Revising Vermillion for the game and making one to five star versions of it had been a fun little side project. They'd had to do a few rough adjustments to make it worthwhile for more than a short time, but it was more a project for fans than anything serious. It had serious flaws. It was still very popular.)

 

[lost star]

Time waited for no one. It ground on without a care to petty human concerns. Sometimes though, it could be kind. After the initial spurt of activity, things started to slow down. Aside from general recruitment and build up, not much happened in the mountain. Bolt focused on studying and doing minor adjustments to his current lines of mechs. Lilly focused on recruiting and training. It was preparation work for the future and a welcome break for the couple.

In the meantime the galaxy moved on without touching them yet. Vesia finished it's war with their neighbors and went into a stabilizing period. Their frequent and constant internal rebellions had started to cause intolerable instability. Their focus was mostly inward as a result. It'd be a few years before they turned their attention outwards once more.

Likewise, the Empties were inward facing still. That was par for the course admittedly. Their internal politics were quite murky to outsiders. Something about their makeup and ruling structure made them very disinclined to look outwards for the most part, and people tended not to pry in the face of more relevant and local matters.

The Land of Serene Temples was going to be the largest trouble in the near future. Their ever-present bloodlust was barely restrained at the best of times. It was very likely that they'd be starting up their own wars shortly. Though calling it wars was a bit of a misnomer. They very frequently didn't formally declare war. What they did was send out raiding bands under experts to pick fights. Those bands would attack whomever looked like the best fight and return with whatever plunder they could get. It was a spectacularly infuriating and complicated tactic that had caused more than a few wars, which the nation gleefully and enthusiastically encouraged.

Bolt and Lilly's home was not immune to these raids. They were expecting at least one good attack within a year or two. Until then they had time to prepare. It helped significantly that the Wrench Rats were making good business. Bolt's creations weren't breakout hits, but they were enjoying steady and consistent sales with some surprising successes.

Cerberus was getting a reputation for being a good and consistent guard mech. It worked well in groups and was considered a very good mech to put less skilled pilots into. The Hellfire Missiles didn't require exact aiming and the mech itself was hard to mess up. Having a few good sensor mechs was also just good sense. They enjoyed brisk sales, especially in Vesia due to the different dog variants Bolt offered.

The Shining Shrine Maiden was enjoying an almost cultish popularity in the Empties. Every church wanted one. They also wanted them decorated appropriately, which was fairly trivial to do thanks to the Wrench Rat expertise. The only reason it wasn't a breakout hit was because each church really only wanted one. They were functional show pieces. Very loved, but also not something you needed a lot of.

Aside from that, the most commonly ordered mech was Zombie. The cheap mech was easy to use and deceptively durable. Most buyers had a habit of either not bothering with the head, or loading up custom ordinance in the decoy target. Typically relatively cheap things. They were decent filler mechs. A step up from ultra-cheap frontline mechs but still very affordable and consistent.

Bloody Berserker also enjoyed brisk sales. They weren't exactly popular, but more than a few mercenary companies liked having a few. The durability and destructive force made them useful in a narrow but consistently used role. The reinforced cockpit was also big selling point. Line breaking was a dangerous role in an already dangerous field. Having something that kept the pilots in the role alive was appreciated.

Other than that, the rest of Bolts designs were not particularly popular. They enjoyed a few sales here and there. The Ghoul version with Nanites, dubbed Scavenger Ghoul was too expensive for most people. It was still bought, but not much. Even with the custom nanites provided by the manufacturer the mech was simply too niche for the common buyer. The other mechs were likewise not suitable for most people. The Drowned Man was the most commonly bought of them. Fortunately it didn't cost anything to offer the mechs, and manufacturing different ones was easy for Bolt's family so they remained for sale. The production lines for the mountain weren't even being stressed yet!

These sales (plus the individual part licenses and repair jobs) put the Wrench Rats into the minorly successful category for mech salesmen. For mech companies this meant a few billion credits of whatever currency you worked in profit. For natives of the Junk Planet, this meant they were richer than anyone on the planet had ever seen. Not that this mattered much. It had about as much value to them as paper would to a starving man. There was no local economy at the moment. It led to a very odd situation where the Wrench Rats had to basically import everything and pay the locals in ration packs.

Strange economy aside, the money was still useful elsewhere. Lilly's ascension had eased a lot of things. She still needed a 'win' so to speak. She needed to show she wasn't going to squat on the planet and do nothing. They had a truce and an informal agreement that the planet was hers. To get it formally, they had to show she had teeth and ambition. This was where the money was being useful. They were planning an expedition to the Cold Grave.

Historically the planet was basically the local treasure hunter's destination. It was a planet in the boonies that had once been the site of several battles between an alien race and both the MTA and CFA. Officially it had been cleaned out of anything valuable. Unofficially people kept finding small trinkets and things there. Most people assumed that the big two simply didn't care about the smaller things that kept being found and found it amusing to see people squabble over scrap.

There were many reasons that it hadn't been claimed and seriously explored. One was that the average temperature was below subzero. Two, it was a fortress planet. It had automated alien defenses. Many of them were still active even after all of the aliens had been exterminated. Three, one of the defenses drove people mad if they stayed too long. Four, and probably the biggest one, the planet was isolated. Rust Bucket was actually only close because of its unique FTL configuration.

Now why did Lilly want to get in there? Experts were immune to the maddening effect and could apparently ward it away from other people. More importantly, Wrench Rats were experts at salvage. If there was one thing they knew they could beat anyone in, it was salvage. They were going to loot everything not nailed down and then steal the nails, the planks attached to the nails, and even the building if they could manage it.

This came back to money. You had to spend money to make money. They needed to rent haulers. They needed mechs prepared. They needed supplies, and other things.

Fortunately Bolt's designs came in handy here. The focus on repair and consistency helped significantly in long deployments. Cerberus could be configured with different sets of missiles, and Bloody Berserker could easily be shifted around to fight the defenses. This was important because the local 'monsters' were basically big stone constructs. They were durable and bulky in ways that many mechs weren't designed to deal with. Bloody Berserker would need to use hammers instead of axes.

It was a risky and large undertaking for a new group still. This problem was made doubly so by the fact that their home would very likely be attacked or raided while they were gone. The grim calculations of how things worked in this universe meant that without Lilly at the mountain they'd be considered weak and vulnerable. Someone would try something. Especially once word got out about the planet's status. Lack of claim by the nations made it a prime target for opportunists.

Lilly and Bolt were naturally taking steps to prevent that sort of thing, but they both knew how little that would matter in the end. Despite all the steps they'd made, they were still suffering the whims of the more fortunate. Their path to freedom was going to be filled with risks like this.

Money did come in handy though. In many ways. Reinforcing the shields in the mountain and spending enough for a few precautions did help quite a bit. Bolt and Lilly were not powerless. Not anymore.

Thus, a year and some days after Lilly's wedding they hired a few ships and made their way out of the system. Risking it all on a chance and a prayer. There was something both thrilling and terrifying about that.

 

[lost star]

"Remember, masks on at all times!" The command came from the mission leader immediately after landing. An old veteran Wrench Rat, Cable. "The cold's enough to freeze your lungs if you aren't careful. We do have fixes for that, but I'll make sure your stupid ass suffers if you have it happen!"

"Venerable Lilly, might I ask why you aren't lead?" One of the newer pilots asked on a private channel while the briefing started.

Lilly kicked back on Dowry and looked over the sensors. "Can't give orders for the life of me. Also, this lets me focus on combat." They'd trained for it, but there was still some friction among her people. Especially when the mission leader wasn't even a pilot.

Their rented ride had been surprisingly painless. They'd just paid some money and gotten shipped. No questions asked. Getting dropped down had been likewise easy. Cold Grave was a barren, undefended place on the surface. The defenses were all inside. The danger was all inside. Getting to the surface was easy.

Really, the cold and snow on the surface were enough to dissuade the more casual looters. The environment was so brutal that a unsheltered person would die in seconds. Mechs would creak and act sluggish if they weren't treated. Vision was measured in steps, and even sensors had trouble picking up things. It probably would have been disturbing if they'd not trained significantly in misty conditions with similar visibility.

"Remember, we have two FTL communicators for emergency exits. We will also get a checkup in thirty days. We will be setting up a rear base once we find an entrance. That will be our base of operations and fallback point. Do NOT forget that. If you are lost, or our FTL comms are down, the base will be our last resort." Cable continued to rant at the people.

Lilly kept half an ear on it as she kept watch. They'd chosen a landing spot that wasn't frequently used. Cable, as an old hand at salvage, knew how things were hidden. Though this was a fortress planet built by aliens the tricks to hide things were still pretty consistent. Not too obvious, not too out of the way. This landing spot had stood out as a good target after they'd poured over all their available information. If they were lucky, there was an untouched entrance nearby. That meant a possible payday, if they could grab it.

It didn't look like much at the moment. Ice, snow, wind. Not much to see. The planet itself was far relatively from the local star, so the lighting was also very poor and wouldn't get better. It was a minor miracle that it had breathable air. Or likely engineering. This was not meant to be a pretty world. It was a world designed to be a weapon and fortification.

A few minutes of briefing and checking their supplies happened before they began to move. Past the landing zone the terrain dipped and the wind got even worse. Even their treated mechs were having minor issues here and there, but it was easy to handle. Their goal was a narrow valley with high walls and no discernable features. It was almost claustrophobic for their mechs as they entered it and the wind had narrowed down to such a point that their vehicles were actually rocking from the force. Lilly led. Based off their guesses, this was a less used entrance to the fortress innards. Easy landing spot nearby, and a very subtle path into the planet. It was a possible emergency entrance or something similar.

Quicker than thought Dowry's hand lashed out before anyone could even register movement. A stone snake like monster was caught mid lunge and she pulled the thing up before biting down on it. The teeth tore through the stone covering and then there was a burst of heat registered in the mech's mouth before it cooled.

"Ambush types." Lilly reported as she examined the strange creation. "Camo and low visibility."

"Dogs front and rear!" Cable ordered immediately. "Send out a comm if you see something!"

There was some shuffling as the transport vehicles were repositioned. Fortunately mechs were mobile enough that it wasn't that large an issue. They began to travel again with more alertness. This was actually a good sign.

Lilly caught two more 'snakes.' The Berserkers crushed the others. They were simple and relatively easy to spot once you knew they were there thanks to Cerberus. These likely wouldn't even be able to really damage mechs. A quick analysis from Bolt determined that they were meant to pierce with their nose and inject superheated material into an enemy. Dangerous, but only if they weren't found beforehand. Really most of the pilots found them more like jokes than threats.

"They were likely more dangerous to older mechs." The designer noted over the coms as he continued his analysis. "Or they could be mine equivalents. They're quite simple and barebones as constructions."

"Historic reports are that there are still manufacturing facilities up and running." Cable contributed. "Cleared places don't stay cleared unless you find the places they're made in, and those are all over."

"We sure it's abandoned?" Someone asked.

"Very. Ya couldn't see it by landing, but the CFA made a nice big crack on the other side. That plus cold and time means nothing can live here." Cable answered. "Ain't a reason to be relaxed though. One o' those snakes will eat ya whole and have room for the truck yer in."

Lilly could almost hear the gulps. She did agree with the sentiment though. She could see possible holes that the snakes could come out of. Were the defenses fully intact there likely would have been hundreds of those snakes just ready to leap out. This might have been the easiest part of the job, but it wouldn't do to be sloppy.

More time spent traveling. A few more snakes were crushed. Walls rose around them and they moved deeper and deeper. Soon a roof covered them, and the wind stilled. This made it more eerie, not less. Outside of the wind there was only the sound of the mechs and vehicles they were guarding. By this point there were no more obvious defenses.

Eventually their lights showed that there was no where else to go. The tunnel terminated into solid rock, with no seams or obvious entrances. Nothing for mechs and nothing for people either. It was a dead end so obvious there had to be something around.

"Looks promising. Wonder boy yer up!" Cable called out.

"Wonder boy?" Bolt asked over the coms with obvious amusement.

"Should I go with lover boy instead?" The old man asked.

"No, I claim that one." Lilly joked and got a few laughs.

They needed them. The atmosphere was already oppressive. Lilly could feel little tickles at the edges of her senses and had to practically flare her willpower every now and again to push it back. Something was pressing at people. It wasn't potent yet, but she could feel it trying to claw at her people. A small weight that would grow as she had to hold it up.

At Dowry's feet Bolt got out of the armored vehicle he was in and walked to the dead end. It was very, very obvious that there was something there. A path like this was too artificially made. It was equally obvious that the door was shut and hidden.

Minutes passed. Then Bolt returned to the vehicle and pulled out a customized set of tools, including something that let him fly into the air briefly. The young man moved up and down the dead end before calling over a few other techs. They emerged and began to examine areas on the wall too. They discussed things, then hammered at the walls with sledge hammers a few times before they returned to their vehicles.

"Transmitting a few instructions. Lilly, your claws will have to work here. Be precise as possible." Bolt instructed the expert once he was settled. "We found what we need but we'll need to rip off some protection before cracking it."

Lilly looked at the markings and then raised her eyebrows. They were telling her to claw at the right wall instead of in front of her. The opening was perpendicular to the hallway then?

Experts could get very precise when they needed to. Dowry's claws were meant to rip into armor. The stone used in this planet was armor-tough, but still quite vulnerable to her mech. The fingers dug into the stone at the markings and she found some very distinct mechanisms after digging a bit.

Once these were exposed, Bolt and the others were able to hook up some generators to the mechanisms and force something to run. Very slowly the seamless wall started to open up like a curtain, revealing a very large and long, unlit corridor. The winding passage felt ominous.

"First step done." Cable said to everyone. "Now setup camp and get out the markers. We're taking no risks."

 

[lost star]

The camp when it was finished was not much. It was a simple fortified area with a few tents and such to keep out the cold. It was mostly a resting area that held their excess supplies and a theoretical fallback if they needed it. The ideal was to keep a few guards there while they ranged out and then return regularly before making further decisions. This would very likely change based on circumstances, but it was the idea. They planned for one to two months. They had supplies for six. The amount they'd brought was excessive, but it gave them extreme leeway and theoretical trade options if they encountered others. (Not likely.) Being pressed for time due to supplies would likely result in mistakes. Mistakes would kill.

"First layer is going to be a big maze." Cable explained to Bolt as the rode along in one of the armored vehicles. "History nerds call it the alien's version of a kill zone."

Kill zone was likely a misnomer really. That implied a place with a lot of weapons setup to funnel enemies. The first layer of the planet below the surface was mostly large tunnels fit for mechs. They were very empty and very dark. They twisted and turned in a dizzying fashion, and contained some rather strange shapes. The disturbing and frequently claustrophobic geometry was tailor made to disrupt human senses. More disturbing was the fact that the stone walls healed from damage over time. Lilly had clawed a few with her mechs and hours later the claw damage was noticeably reduced. It was like they were in something's innards rather than a planet of stone. Traveling through it and exploring it was going to be a nightmare.

They still persisted in their exploration. Rats in the pursuit of cheese could be very persistent. Days passed as they roamed up and down the passages carefully in pairs. People started to hear whispers if they hadn't been nearby Lilly recently. Bolt personally spent the nights with her, so he didn't notice anything aside from a few quiet sounds at the edge of hearing, but the symptoms were rather obvious when they happened. Paranoia and trouble sleeping. There was nothing he could do about that, so he tried his best to contribute in other ways.

His focus became dealing with the enemy force composition. These automatons, or fake mechs as others called them occasionally. These enemies loved to hide in these twisted tunnels, and made exploration something only the mechs could do without risk. So far they weren't a large threat. That could change. They all wanted to be ready.

It was rather fascinating from an academic standpoint. The large stone constructs that defended the place were made of some sort of stone, metal fusion. The alloy was smooth, slightly organic looking, and surprisingly tough. It didn't match mech armor, but the stuff made up for it by being extremely flexible when active. The dead 'snakes' were basically just a tube of stone and hot matter inside them. It didn't need joints or leverage. Just this living stone. How it worked was a large mystery. There wasn't any sort of obvious engine or anything else at first.

Bolt got a clue from the next step up when they encountered them. Spiders. Yes, it was as horrifying as it sounded. The round stone things suspended by eight spindly legs were disturbing enough to encounter, but they spat acid too. They were likely fulfilling a scout and terror role. The acid wasn't potent enough to be immediately dangerous, but it weakened metal and added a chemical identifier that likely marked the mech. Bolt's immediate counter action to handle that was just to create a spray that solved both issues. Loading it into a crude and quickly made missile and having the Cerberus mechs fire it sounded rather funny, but it worked. Yes, they were shooting their own mechs to prevent damage. Yes it was amusing. No you didn't get to do it that often.

Countering them was not the only thing he did. He examined them too, and that was where the clue came in. The living stone only looked homogonous on the first look. It actually had trace circuit like materials wound through the stone that functioned as a power supply and what made the locomotion happen. It was very efficient and hard to identify, but once Bolt did he was able to force the spider legs to move with a generator and a bit of wire work. It was a good first step.

Only a first step though. It didn't solve where the central command node housing the AI equivalent was, or where the power was coming from. It did give them weak points to target. All the spiders and snakes were identical. Cutting or damaging critical points made them inoperable, and having their mechs computers mark those targets made it easy for even the least proficient pilot to deal with.

More days passed as they continued to map the tunnels and deal with the persistent enemies. Cable was fairly sure that there was nothing in the first layer by this point. Had the base been live, they likely would have been bogged down with these stone constructs in the maze of passages. Instead they had long passages of nothing. They needed to get deeper to get into the good stuff. The tricky question was, where were the entrances?

The answer was never, ever bet against the scavenger when there was loot on the line. They were still Rats in the end. Born and raised on a planet where mechs died and battlefields looted. This wasn't the first fortress Bolt's people had looted. Just the largest.

Some of the more ambitious techs were the ones to find the opening that gave them the clue. It was very likely just a flaw in the architecture more than anything else. All it was was a small hole that they could put a drone through. Some of the living stone had melded with one of the walls wrong and given them a twisted path to drop down into the next layer. That had revealed another mech-sized tunnel that was lit up and straight rather than cured and disturbing. That was enough of a clue to mark it as a priority. After that it was just a matter of finding where it joined to the first layer.

This was easier said than done. A few long hours of tracing revealed that there was no obvious entrance. There was only a place where the two tunnels were close. This was considered good enough. It turned out that the creepy wall repairing feature couldn't work if you put a small sheet of metal in the way. With a target destination they could just do some controlled demolition and digging. They ripped open the tunnel and plastered some metal over the 'wounds,' and that was their in.

Time taken to get in? About a week and a half. Not bad theoretically. They'd gotten nothing of value yet, but they'd gotten past the initial security. Lilly was holding up decently, but they did switch her to more resting times. She was the lynchpin for the entire process and if she became exhausted they'd have trouble.

A third defender made themselves apparent as they explored more. Consisting of squat things with two legs and arms, the swiftly dubbed claymen were actual threats in that they were causing damage. At about three quarters the size of their mechs, the claymen had what amounted to machine guns in the place of arms. The shots were relatively anemic, and a zombie could bring them down alone, but that sort of chip damage would be dangerous if it added up. They also came in packs and were completely suicidal in behavior.

The actual arm weapons and stupidity made them useful in a different way though. Lilly was able to bring them down without actually killing them. The spiders and snakes had been too hard to keep alive. This one, she'd just needed to hack off the arms and then Bolt could get into one while it was still alive.

Well, cut into it. Getting through the stone stuff that they were made of required the same saw they used to break open damaged mechs. The things were basically blobs on legs too, so finding vital parts involved cutting out chunks in random areas and hoping you got the right areas. The coordination indicated something like active communication though. Using the hints from the spiders and several more test subjects let him narrow down the vital part to a golden area. Literal gold laced stone.

"This would be a bit valuable in another time." Bolt observed.

"Can't say I like the joking at tha moment." One of the techs he'd roped into to help noted nervously.

That was fair enough. They were standing in the thing's head and it was still trying to wiggle out of the restraints. It was a bit unsteady and if it got free they'd get squished.

"So, based on the others and my guesses, if we cut this, the thing will stop moving. So it's how they do brains in these things. How is it coordinating though?" Bolt mused.

The tech waved a tool in the air. "No radio. Getting the other doodad out." He put away the tool and pulled out another sensor. "This one got nothing either. Light maybe?"

"No receiver visible." Bolt knelt and placed a hand on the gold. Then he frowned and pulled off his glove.

"You touch that without cover yer losing the hand." The tech warned immediately. "Don't like no wind fool ya, it's still subzero."

"Ain't that stupid. Still got my thin glove on see?" Bolt wiggled the hand and pressed it to the gold. "It's not warm... But..."

"Coulda told you it wasn't warm." The tech muttered irritably.

"Yeah, if it were a computer it'd be warm enough to heat my hand, but these things don't generate a lot through their standard action, and distribute it very well." Bolt muttered. "Still, it's like. Hmm. Lilly? Mind poking this with your hand, it feels a bit like your warmth!" He called out.

The expert pilot didn't ask questions. She just got out of her mech and landed next to Bolt, then tapped at it. It was impossible to see her expression through the mask, but they could see her confusion.

"It does have that sorta feel to it. Also kinda pointing, ya know?" Lilly muttered.

"Yeah." Bolt nodded and held his hand to it. "Pointing... That way." He pointed in turn.

Curious, the tech pressed his hand to the thing. "I can't feel a thing." He admitted. "But yer the special ones, and one way's as good as another. Can try to triangulate things if we get another and this feeling is consistent."

That was what they ended up doing. Like the tech had said, one way was as good as another. Having an actual direction gave them a goal more than wandering corridors hoping for a lucky strike.

 

[lost star]

M060

----

Bolt and Lilly's senses had led them to a manufacturing and command area. That was the best description of what they found. A large factory for stone things. It was actually really fascinating to watch from a distance. They could see stone being poured like water into forcefield molds to form an alien replacement mech. It was a cross between metal casting and clay shaping. Actually very interesting, and something Bolt could watch all day.

"We need to disable it." Cable said bluntly as he lowered the binoculars.

"Getting Lilly and and wrecking it shouldn't be an issue." Bolt pointed out as he lowered his own vision aid.

The older man shook his head in an exaggerated fashion so that it was visible through the hood and mask. "No. She's getting worn down. Also, first rule of salvage. Keep the machines active if ya can." He pulled out a communicator. "Send in the rat cars."

Bolt stifled a snort. The rat cars were actually little cars with rats in them. Cheap, disposable, and perfect for triggering traps that targeted movement or things with biological traces. He pulled up his binoculars again.

The manufacturing area was part of a layered fortification designed to withstand a significant amount of damage. It also had a thousand holes in it due to time and the lack of manpower. That was how Bolt and rest had managed to sneak in so close. The designer had to assume that they'd usually have something to handle people, but those were long gone now. All that was left was the standby stuff. In this case a small army of silent and still stone guards on the outside that Lilly had already wrecked.

Watching the rat cars move through the open areas and towards the main manufacturing area was surprisingly tense. They trundled down a few ramps, through a few open areas and then to a door. A little mechanical hand opened the door and then the machine moved inside the largest building.

A few tense seconds later, and the tech manning the car gave an all clear. The next one to head out was an actual tech. Clad in their standard shielding robes, he carefully walked to the building. Then entered it.

Bolt watched from outside as Cable directed everyone. After the initial tension, all he could do was watch more stone things being poured. He wasn't in charge of clearing the building. That job went to the more experienced people, and it was going to take a few hours.

True to his thoughts, it took several hours before he was addressed. "We'll need you to look at things." Cable spoked up. "Can't make heads or tales of the controls."

Bolt nodded and snuck into the building himself. The inside was a mess to put it politely. Ruined and alien decorations littered the floor, and several doors had been forcefully burned open. There were even a few frozen bodies on the ground. Long mummified and utterly unidentifiable. None of them had warm clothes.

"Think the bodies are worth anything?" A tech asked casually.

"No." Bolt responded as he ignored the corpses and moved in. "Maybe something more intact, but this? They likely have mountains of them out there."

"Probably."

Death was nothing new. Once you'd had to clear out a collapsed bunker, you realized the fragility of life. Humans didn't treat themselves well. Why would they treat aliens differently?

Further inside he could see why people were having trouble. There were screen equivalents, but no buttons. Just little green crystal things here and there. Bolt refrained from speculating and examined the place further. The little crystals showed up again and again, placed in storge, on shelves, and elsewhere. They were the only consistent thing. The rest was decorations, mostly. There were a few possible weapons that no one wanted to test.

It was pretty obvious that the crystals were something, but visually they had no indicators as to what. Bolt had his suspicions though, and picking one up with a thin glove let him feel a strange sort of... Well connection was the best way to describe it. Feeling that there was a connection and actually connecting wasn't exactly easy though. That took more than a bit of fumbling mentally. Sort of like groping for a switch in a dark room. You knew it was there, but finding it was a different matter.

"This isn't pleasant." Bolt muttered to the techs as he tried to connect.

"Ain't even feeling anything." One of the other techs muttered as he held one of the crystals.

"Lilly says she feels something similar." Someone else called out. They'd brought her a few, since getting in and out was fairly easy if you avoided what looked to be the automated sensor areas.

Finally finding the 'connection' after all that fumbling was something of a relief really. Mentally Bolt couldn't explain it that well. Getting back to the dark room analogy, it was like he'd finally found the switch. How did you describe that to another person? Fortunately once he connected the rest was actually very intuitive, if admittedly tiring.

"Technical information." Bolt said as he began to categorize things. "Notes about mechs. Notes on enemies." His head was starting to throb a bit. "Shit, I can't do this that long."

"Think you can turn off the manufacturing?" Cable asked the relevant question.

As an answer Bolt moved to the very obvious crystal screens and pressed a finger to one of the chips beneath it. There he connected again. Most of the functions were indecipherable. He'd need to study everything more to get a feel of what was going on. Whatever and however these things stored information, it by passed the language barrier. It didn't give him instant understanding.

Issuing a general shutdown didn't need a lot of work thankfully. It did increase the throb behind his eyes a bit. Bolt rubbed at his mask as the throb slowly abated. He was going to have to take things slowly here.

"Damnit, this is going to take forever." He muttered as he saw the veritable pile of crystals his fellows had looted.

Cable chuckled. "Well, we can get Lilly in now. Just got a report that all the constructs in the area are inert now. Maybe she can help some when she gets the trick. These are small so we can store em just fine as well. This'll be a great place to move everything to once we clear out some things." (Translated, once they cleared out the bodies.)

The next few hours showed why they were veteran salvagers. Everything of value was found and categorized. They found rare materials. They found hiding spots. They even searched the bodies and found a few more crystal things.

Called Jade Slips, they were basically alien data storage. Some careful exploration from Bolt and Lilly found that they could hold a lot of information in a relatively language free form. It would actually have been a good personal diary or something like that if normal people could use them. As it was, Bolt got a headache after a few minutes of use, and Lilly was already being pressed mentally by keeping people 'clean' from the whispers so she couldn't actually review them.

In light of that Bolt changed priorities. Cracking into the enemy data storage would be extremely valuable. Therefore, while people were working on salvaging things, Bolt decided on another project. He'd already seen that a Jade Slip analog could interact with one of the crystal screens. Those were just TV screens made by aliens. In theory, all he needed to do was get one of their portable computers and get something setup to do a similar conversion.

Theory did not turn into practice unfortunately. The tokens required some sort of internal power that only he and Lilly had to read. They also didn't really store things in an easy to transcribe format that a computer could interpret either. It was best described as impressions and images. A person could understand it, but trying to write it out was rather difficult. How would you describe a picture with emotional context added to it? His few experiments gave them absolutely nothing, even with a near replica of what the aliens used.

Bolt did get another idea as he thought about the problem. What he was doing was really just a mental interface. It was very similar to one they already had. The nero-helmets in mechs. Therefore it shouldn't be that difficult to just add another input. He made a small device he called a Slip Reader, and then attached it to the mech's inputs.

Bizarrely, it worked out pretty well with a bare minimum of adjustment. All the pilots needed to do was put the Jade Slips into the provided slot and they could read them effortlessly. This both freed up Bolt and Lilly, and gave them a lot more people to look over the loot they'd gotten.

The designer couldn't say the pilots were happy about becoming glorified librarians, but they did begrudgingly help as requested. Part of that was because they had nothing else to do with the defenses disabled in this area. The other part was because they rather needed the help. There were over a thousand of the blasted things to go through. The pilots couldn't make sense of most of the details, but categorizing them reduced the time Bolt was tied up substantially.

 

[lost star]

"There's a surprising amount of personal memories in the slips." Bolt noted as he looked over the list they'd ended with. Technical information, history, some tutorials on strange things, and so on.

Several days had passed since they'd basically stolen the small fortification. Mostly leisurely. Aside from the whispers tapping at their minds, the place had been quiet. Disabling one of the production facilities had made a hole in the defenses and given them a good place to fortify up to boot. Remodeling the fortress for occupation had been relatively simple. Adding some insulation and heating elements had let everyone relax and recover from the constant tension some. It was still there, just a bit muted. They'd had a small victory.

Cable snorted at the statement. "You ain't done looting like this before. Just be glad we found so little porn." He gestured at the pile.

"I'll defer to your expertise and be sure those are properly labeled. Did we find burial rights?" Bolt asked before flipping through the sparse data they'd digitized.

"Entombed in stone." The older man said. "We found one of the unoccupied buildings, put the bodies in, and then poured concrete over it."

Bolt nodded. Rats were used to death. The policy was, loot, pillage, and then bury the poor saps if you could. Or do what they considered their final rights. Which was actually cremate them a lot of the time. No one wanted angry ghosts, and here the ghosts felt more angry than was normal.

"So, the next step is to find where to go next." Bolt said.

Cable gave a grunt. "Found a map in the mess thankfully. The language barrier hit us there though. Got a few places ta go. Thinking we go to the one the pilots described with two words. Valuable and ascension."

Bolt nodded and rummaged through the Slips until he found the one that had the map in question. Connecting to it was easier than it had been, but was still tension inducing. He had to agree with the interpretation. The name didn't translate. The concepts of valuable ascension did.

"After that?" The young man asked as he set down the slip.

"Depends on how Lilly's holding up." Cable responded.

Bolt winced. She was feeling tired no matter how much she slept at this point. It wasn't a critical exhaustion, but it was becoming noticeable. She'd taken to sleeping in Dowry because it helped keep the pressure away according to her.

"Based on that look we don't got much time left. We'll hit this ascension whatever and bugger out." The old man said with a grunt.

"How's our loot going?" The designer asked.

Cable shook his head and didn't sugar coat his words. "Not the best. We're covering the trip with the loot here. We found raw exotics in the manufacturing area. It's a decent payout, but we'll get gypped when we try to sell them."

Then the ascension thing was their best chance for actual profit. Though even if they found nothing that wasn't that large a problem. Lilly, despite her abilities, was still pretty young and untested as an expert. She lacked endurance. They had no idea how long she could have lasted, so they'd planned for something like this. Breaking even was mostly fine. It was not a failure, which was important. They could spin this fairly easily, especially due to the lack of casualties so far.

Bolt crossed his fingers as they began to travel once more. The ascension area wasn't close, but it wasn't far away either. The twisted paths and changes directions would have made it nearly impossible to find without a map. Now that they had one, the trip was almost pleasant.

Their destination was less so. The place had no room for mechs. The entrance was a locked double doorway hidden in the large halls. Unlike the obviously neglected and upended production facility, this place had been carefully closed up and sealed. This meant potentially valuable, and dangerous.

Fortunately most traps weren't meant to deal with a mech. Dowry might have been a bit slow because Lilly was exhausted, but she could easily rip a door open with her fingers still. The damage the traps did was absolutely negligible to mech grade armor. (It still damaged her, which was more than a little terrifying to imagine on a person.)

The rat cars caught the rest of the traps, of which there were more than a few. It was only when they could send a car all the way in and out that they sent in people to explore. Bolt was almost immediately called in again.

He couldn't even blame them this time. The manufacturing area had been alien but understandable in the end. This place had diagrams on the walls with circles and alien anatomy, things hovering in the air, and far too much glow. It made his head buzz a little bit.

The configuration of a few side rooms was interesting too. Bolt turned to one of them and examined them with a critical eye. They were barren except for a mat. The door locked from the inside.

"You see squiggles on the door right?" Bolt asked.

"Yep." One of the techs took out a magnifying camera and looked them over. "Laced with something. Looks like an exotic. Want us to pull it out?"

"No." The young man muttered and traced the lines. "Look at how they go over the entire room."

"Is it me or are the walls sound insulated too?" Another guy asked before stepping into the room and clapping his hands and listening to the sound. "Huh, I know this configuration! It's one of those fancy sensory deprivation rooms!"

"Then what do the squiggles do?" Bolt stepped in himself and closed the door.

Both him and the tech watched the writing carefully, but noticed no changes. Just as Bolt was about to open the door the tech held up a hand. He waited a moment as the tech breathed in and out through his mask.

"Holy shit, I can't hear the whispers at all." He said.

Bolt felt his eyebrows raise. He then opened the door and gestured to one of the techs. "Get Lilly here! They block the whispers!" He ordered with excitement.

Those words got the expert into one of the rooms before she could even ask what was going on. It was a testament to her exhaustion that she didn't protest much, and once she figured out what the rooms did she immediately flopped down in one of them. They had to provide a few blankets and make sure that the girl didn't suffocate in case it didn't let air through, but a place for her to recover was a godsend.

"We'll see if we can pull out another room whole." One of the techs said and pointed to one on the opposite wall. "If it just needs the little art projects we can cut out the room and test it. I'm sure a lotta people would love having a place insulated like that."

Bolt eyed the walls and the area. "X-ray it and test how the rock breaks first. Then wait until Lilly's recovered. We don't want ta risk destroying it yet. What else is there?"

"Side from the floaty things, there's a big door with some o' those slips next to it." Another man offered.

With a hum the designer moved to that area. There, as described, was a very prominent set of Slips right next to the door entrance. He pressed a thinly gloved hand to the slips and concentrated. The connection was fairly easy. The information was alarming.

"Shit. This place is running out of power." Bolt muttered.

"How long?" Was the immediate question from his fellows. "And what will it impact?" Was the other question.

"Few hours, and not much. I meant this room specifically. It runs off something with a fancy name and it started drawing power on entry." Bolt grumbled. "The floating things are some sort of training tool. Ya touch em and they help with something something sight." The concepts did not translate well at all. "This big thing is where most o' the power goes and it's about ta go out."

With a sigh the designer opened the door and peered in. He then gave a signal for the other techs to stand back. This had to be done quickly.

"I'm going to try to get something out of it. Give me a few!" He called back.

 

[lost star]

The room he ducked into was strange. In their exploration of the planet they'd found plenty of unusual things. This room topped it somehow. On the surface of it, it looked surprisingly normal. It was simply a room that had a slight slope to it. There was series of circles on the floor and a stalactite like structure in the center of it. If you discounted the glow, it would have been a strange curiosity. With the glow, it looked both wonderous and ominous.

Knowing the purpose of the room didn't detract from the aura it had. The aliens had a long word for it. Bolt termed it the 'ascension chamber' in his head. It was considered a 'safe' way to ascend for them in the documentation he'd found. Expensive, hard to power, but safe. The subject sat in the center and they were subjected to challenges of some nature on a spiritual level. The challenge would theoretically advance them, or simply fail if they couldn't advance. According to the aliens it was a cumulation of their study and the pinnacle of their work.

This sort of thing was invaluable. It was also nearly broken and almost out of power. There was enough for one anemic use according to the storage gauges. Putting Lilly in it wouldn't achieve anything, which was his first thought. The power requirements scaled beyond belief. Putting someone else in was iffy. Based on how things seemed to work with these aliens, just him and Lilly had the special sauce to connect, so to speak. Also, he could trust his fellows, but not with this.

If it hadn't been about to break he would have sold it, no question. Even with all the unknowns, this was an invaluable discovery. But he didn't know what fuel it used and couldn't fix it. He barely knew how to activate it. If it was going to be used, it had to be used now. This was very risky. He judged it worth it. The young man stepped forward, seated himself under the stalactite and closed his eyes. Mentally he connected to the device, and activated it. Everything blurred as his consciousness was pulled elsewhere.

"Welcome, welcome, guests and contests ladies and other beings. Welcome one and all to the ascension trials!" A voice immediately spoke. "Here we test the latest and greatest, or the least and worst, who am I to judge?! Oh, wait, I am the judge!"

A literal shadow man stood in front of Bolt now. He stood on a white and non-descript plane. Bolt looked down at his hands and saw nothing but shadow as well. He wasn't sure what he expected, but it wasn't this.

"Joking and kidding aside, we are here to have fun and entertain our audience, not to quibble about nothings!" The shadow man winked to something in the distance somehow. "And what a better way to do so than to have our trial takers make mechs!"

Bolt tried to speak, but found nothing coming out of his mouth. He was just a shadow here. Did he make a mistake here?

"Oh, but they aren't just making mechs! They're making mechs of their dreams! No assembly required. Special sauce included. Unliiiimited budget! Once they're designed, we then make two! And smash them together!!!" The host laughed. "To make things extra fun, they're all going to be piloted based off one of our grand contestant's memories. One expert candidate times two. So assume a spectacular show!"

The designer had so many questions. That wasn't nearly enough of an explanation. Then something hammered into his head and he winced as the rules made themselves apparent.

Two versus two. He'd have two rounds. Once against one opponent. Once against another. He had to design a mech for that. The arena was going to be a flat open arena with four massive pillars large enough to block cover and perch on if the mechs were so inclined.

It was a tricky thing because he needed to make a mech that would work well with a copy of itself. Also, the unlimited bit was a bit of a lie. He was sticking to third rate mechs, which was probably a good thing. If he wanted to try to make a first rate mech he'd make a hash of it.

As far as scenarios went it was intriguing. Especially because he'd pick up something from the mechs he was fighting after the battle. The opponents were 'imitations of blessed,' whatever that meant. He'd be able to determine more once he examined them. Bolt wasn't sure how this was going to help him advance, but he wasn't inclined to abort this. It did feel like a fun challenge that would at least help him develop.

So, he needed a mech that worked well in a duo when duplicated. This was actually very hard thought process. Usually when you made a mech for teamwork, you made a complimentary one. This was making a mech complimentary with itself. Or making it work well alone and just duplicating it. That felt a bit like it was ignoring the spirit of the challenge though.

A few ideas came to him. Some old legends. Ideas about partners. It kept coming back to the problem that these was going to be a mech duplicated, not individual. Bolt hit that stumbling block with each idea and found nothing seemed to fit.

So he discarded that ideal. He went with just making a mech that would work on a line battle. One that'd work with as many as needed.

He had a design he'd been working on consistently. Lilly's second expert mech. One meant to counter the things that would counter her normally, and one that could function where her other one couldn't. Dowry was good, but specialized.

Since this dream world could do anything, he could implement some of it to test it all out. He wouldn't do it all. That mech was supposed to be special. This one couldn't be an expert anyway. No resonating materials to give it the extra boost. This was just going to be a premium mech.

The design began with one wing. Very technically it wasn't a wing. It was a shield set into the back with a few manipulators to make it mobile. This was a poor choice structurally for a variety of reasons. It was actually a horrible choice unless you had specialized materials, or did things differently.

Bolt essentially cannibalized an arm to make it work. The wing draped over one arm and that arm provided the bracing. It wasn't much bracing, but it would make the intent work. This was a mech he was dreaming up. Designing it was surprisingly simple. The parts came together. He didn't need hours worth of simulations. He just needed the concept and it would click together as quick as thought. It was like he had a supercomputer aiding him at all times. The finicky parts were non-existent.

Back to the mech. One shield wing. The wing was custom armor, with special feathers. There'd been one part that Bolt had been working on what felt like forever now. The 'laser sword' from the laser company. The part had never worked. It burned out after less than a second. It provided none of the sword part. It'd been placed in the experimental and unfinished parts of the licenses and left to rot. Bolt had picked it up and been utterly fascinated with it for some strange reason. He finally felt like he could use it now.

He didn't want a sword. He'd just fixated on the part because of the failed dreams associated with it he guessed. Tweaking it every now and again and experimenting had been a relatively cheap process to do in his spare time. He'd spent days just fiddling with the various configurations. The part itself hadn't needed many exotics. It had been easy to sculpt it to look like feathers. He'd just missed something that made them more than cosmetic.

In this dream realm he could get it working. The wing was a shield. The feathers had specialized emitters that created laser feathers. Those feathers would explode on impact, deflecting or incinerating the attacking object. The shield was thin, it was weak, but with the feathers it'd deflect and annihilate attackers.

Here was where the rest of the mech came into play. Physics demanded that each force had an equal and opposite reaction. The feathers exploding didn't necessarily stop the damage completely. They would just change it. They would turn it into part energy and part kinetic force. The mech's frame and wing would have to absorb the kinetic force and redistribute it. His dream design for Lilly was designed to move gracefully. Each hit on this child of that ideal would therefore be absorbed by moving along with it.

In practice it would look like this: An impact would come in, like a sword. The wing would intercept it, there'd be an explosion of light, and the mech would ride that explosion back. Anything kinetic would cause that as it disrupted the containment field. Energy weapons would need another option, and one that he'd try to address for the expert version. Bolt was just happy to be able to get the part working finally.

The weapon was almost an afterthought after all of this. It was a bit of a departure from his normal pattern as well. Bolt was adding two weapons. One was a kinetic shotgun. The other a laser rifle. They would be stored on the back and could be switched rapidly. The shotgun was going to be a pain in the rear to aim and firing it would cause the mech to fly backwards some, but the frame was designed for that. The rifle just needed power and a steady hand, which Bolt could easily implement. One hand was free. The other was meant to brace the shield. It could use the rifle too.

Bolt dubbed the Mech a Guardian Angel.

Design wise, it looked like a mech with a single wing. The aesthetics were white and grey. Behavior wise, it had three modes. One was a shield mode, where it moved it's wing in front of itself to protect itself. The shield would last for one or two big hits before it had to be recharged. While it was doing that, it could switch to a shotgun or the rifle. The rifle would be long range and the shotgun close range. The mech was best described as a rifleman in function. The shotgun was more of a way to get range than a proper deterrent, and the design itself meant that kiting would be the best option.

To be honest, Bolt was so happy he'd finally fixed that damned part he didn't even care if he won or lost!

 

[lost star]

AN: Thank Storybookknight for the mech idea in this chapter.
--

Battle began without fanfare or announcement, as if the dream decided that the emphasis would be on the fight rather than any sort of pageantry. Bolt's angelic looking mech settled on the field and duplicated itself. One became two and two mechs hefted their rifles and aimed towards their opponents.

Those opponents in turn roared in. Pure aggression wafted off their form as the approached. Flames flowed behind them and Bolt had a few moments to just boggle at the design. It was like seeing a train crossed with a mech.

Massive and almost twice the weight of Bolt's angelic riflemen, the heavies had stylized helmets grill like helmets that brought to mind a train's front. They were immensely armored, with heavy and deadly looking gauntlets over their bulky arms. The back bristled with missiles, but the most prominent feature was the feet. They had wheels on them. It was a unique configuration that shouldn't have worked, but did because this area was completely flat. The weight distribution had to be absolutely insanely balanced for this to work.

Bolt couldn't do more analysis before the battle began in earnest. His creations led, focusing on the leading heavy with clinical precision. High powered lasers blasted against the armor and melted off parts of it. It continued on without a care. Midway to its opponents the mech slowed slightly, letting it's compatriot take the lead and using it as a cover.

In reply the angels split apart, bouncing away with short and graceful jumps while firing continuously. Their one wing flapped almost pointlessly as they moved, making it look as if they were almost flying. Their aim shifted here and there almost chaotically as they fired at weak points with precision. Shot by shot the enemy's armor was ground down.

It wasn't enough to stop the oncoming trains. Their boosters stopped but their momentum continued using those almost impractical skates. Then in an instant they split apart and fired something from their waists. Cables flew through the air and embedded themselves into the ground. The heavy mechs shifted in almost impossible angles as they grabbed at the cables and used that leverage to skid in a tight arch, letting them close the gap in an instant.

Those deadly looking arms visibly cocked back. Pistons inside hissed as they compressed. Fire erupted from the elaborate looking gauntlets and the weapon screamed forward in a titanic cacophony. The wings came down to intercept. There was such an explosion of light and fire that Bolt could see nothing, even in this dream realm. When it resolved the wings of both angels were utterly obliterated. White feathers drifted through the air before extinguishing themselves.

It was a costly exchange in truth. The shield had worked as Bolt designed them to. The wings were gone, but so were most of the heavies arms. Both of them were missing most of the gauntlet on their arms now. More importantly, the angels had used the impact to gain distance. Bolt had designed his mechs to absorb kinetic force with their entire body. The medium mechs had skidded away with minimal damage to their chassis. The damage was still not even.

Unfortunate for Bolt's creations, they no longer had defenses against the missiles the train-like mechs were carrying. As the heavies bled off momentum they fired in tandem. Missiles flew through the air and while the angels managed to dodge most of them enough hit to shake and rattle them. Each hit was far more impactful to their movement than it should have been thanks to their innate design.

These were memories of Lilly though. She'd fight to the end without a trace of hesitation. The angels switched weapons smoothly and began to fire off shotgun blasts as they jockeyed for space with the heavies. Without the utterly insane forward momentum the wheel using mechs were far less able to keep up with the more nimble mechs. Each shotgun blast stripped more and more armor off their opponents.

Heavy mechs were used for a reason though. These things could endure the damage they were taking. The match had devolved into two one versus ones. This favored the heavies more in that they could avoid the riflemen focusing one down.

What followed next was a dizzying display of movement and counter movement. The train-like heavies still had those cables. They fired off them again and again, just barely missing the angels. Each miss was used as leverage to give them further movement options and limit their opponents. Bolt's creations had the advantage though. So long as they avoided the cables paths and circled sharply they could avoid most of the damage. The only threat was the missiles and the heavies had less missiles than there were shotgun shots. So long as the angels could avoid most of the shots, they would win.

By this point the two groups had become distant enough that even the rifles were out of the range. The angels had deliberately tried to circle away from obstacles and each other. While the one versus one made it so that they couldn't focus fire, it also made it so that the heavies couldn't aid one another. Bolt had to assume that the pilots considered this a good trade off. Had the heavies not had another trick it might have been.

Battle at higher levels was typically a matter of discovering your opponents options and eliminating or avoiding them. Without the shielding and mitigation an expert's resonance gave, one trick used in a proper area could be lethal. (Even with the shielding it could be lethal, just not immediately.) Here it was displayed again.

It happened quickly. The cable shot out as had been done several times already. The heavy fired off their missiles in the arch where the cable was not. The angel threaded through the missiles and away from the cable. This pattern had already happened. Even the undamaged hand shifting as it readied itself for another devastating punch was completely normal. This time though, the gauntlet ignited and fire flew out as it punched forward, filling the area the angel was dodging in with fire. This made three obstacles that Bolt's creations had to dodge.

The heavy had displayed this fire part before, it'd just never flung the flame. Bolt could see the reason immediately. It wasn't particularly high ranged, just a short ranged area of effect that the heavy had very carefully maneuvered its opponent into. A short lived flamethrower in other words

One angel got caught up in it. The fires burned it just enough for the joints to lock up. A critical second's worth of stuttering that let the heavy get closer and then use another fire punch to further damage it and restrict its mobility such that it was finished in short order.

However, as identical as these pilots were, they were not in complete synch. The second the other angel saw the trick it had already compensated for it. Pulling further back and out of the range of the flamer let it continue to use it's shotgun and then switch to its rifle. Heavy armor or not, the opposing mech could only take so much. The damage eventually reached critical and it failed.

This left it as a one versus one with the two opposing mechs a great distance away. One was a rifleman, the other a pseudo lancer that was already significantly damaged. The conclusion here was very obvious. Victory for Bolt's creation.

The designer wasn't sure what to think about it. While it was true he'd won, it felt more like he'd achieved victory because the matchup was bad rather than his design being bad. Why had this simulation / dream thrown this scenario at him?

"Oooh, victory for the challenger!" The annoying announcer was back now. "Such a close match too! Let's hear a round of applause for our contestants!"

Bolt stared at the shadow figure in complete silence. If there was any clapping he heard none of it. A few moments later the announcer gave a bow and a gesture. The train-mech appeared next to the designer without a sound. He stared up at the heave with a frown. This was possible in reality?

"I can assure you this is something that could be made by you." The announcer winked somehow, despite being a shadow. "Well, if you had the knowledge and the special sauce required."

The young man refrained from rolling his eyes. Not that it'd come through her. Instead he tried to figure out how he could examine it. After a moment the mech started to come apart and parts of it floated by him.

It was an unconventional way of learning how a mech was designed, but he could work with it. Bolt looked the thing over piece by piece. It was foreign. That was the best word for it. Human construction, but foreign. The arms were crude and primitive, even by his standards. They had titanic force though. It was a deliberate choice.

The train impression wasn't that out there. This mech was designed to run over an opponent. A single fist strike, even without the gauntlets would cause damage. With the gauntlets and the fire, it was absolutely deadly. The wheels were a bit of a gimmick in that they'd only work in an arena or on flat terrain, but in those areas it gave the mech some smooth and surprisingly potent mobility.

More interesting was the waist things. Bolt wasn't going to use them, but the cables were an interesting idea that brought the mobility part together. You couldn't sidestep this mech easily. It could corner fast if it needed, and those spears at the tips of the cables would be lethal if they pierced a mech.

He also could feel a small aura around the thing. It was different and yet similar to things he'd felt already. A sort of desire for speed.

What was he supposed to take from this he wondered? Was is just a test of his design abilities?

 

[lost star]

AN: Thank Seras for the mech in this chapter.
---

Bolt's second fight began differently. His mechs were reformed and rearmed as if they'd never been damaged. Then the opponent strode in. Two knights. Two knights ready to fight. Noble knights. Perfect knights. He smacked himself before he could continue on the vein mentally. What the hell?

He recognized it now that he'd broken himself out of the strange enthrallment. This was that aura he'd seen twice now. The swordsman mech in front of him was a product using that technique, brought to another level. He still couldn't see the use aside from the strange and forceful impression he was getting. Even now he had trouble analyzing the mech as a mech rather than thinking of it as a knight.

So far as mechs went it was a focused thing. Pure swordsman, nothing else. No other weapons. Just a mech with blue and silver armor. The head looked feminine with a golden hairstyle. The weapon was the most unique thing about it. Somehow the designer had made an invisible sword. Was that even possible outside a dream?

Possible or not the simulation / dream didn't care. The battle began and the knights sprinted towards his one-winged angels. The angels in turn slowly backpedaled as they shouldered their rifles and began to fire. Lasers lit up the battlefield and the knights juked and jerked to avoid them. These were light mechs in speed, though the focus on just the sword made it so that their armor could take the shots, somewhat. The lead knight was rapidly degrading even as she dodged half the shots. Even with pilots equal in skill it was hard to hit a dodging mech.

Midway through the approach the mech pilot decided she wasn't going to get further before taking an unacceptable amount of shots. The sword came up and interposed itself as the next laser blasted out. Bolt had assumed that the pilot was attempting to sacrifice the blade for the approach. The focused light hit the sword, and then bent.

Bolt stared a moment as the knight parried another shot of light. In retrospect it made a twisted sort of sense. The blade was invisible because it deflected light. Why couldn't the mech parry it? In reality he had no idea how it was managing. There was a big difference between standard light and the focused destruction behind a laser.

The hows of it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the result. The sword swung and the lasers were deflected. It wasn't a perfect defense. Several hits got through, but it was a defense that allowed the knights to approach with less damage than was optimal.

Of course they didn't have it easy. Once it became apparent that the lasers weren't working out well, the angels switched to shotguns. Splitting slightly apart, they blasted out with their weapons once the enemy got into range. Here the cruel calculus of why shotguns were useful became apparent. The knights had no answer to that. You couldn't deflect anti-mech shotgun blast. All you could do was endure it.

The lead knight did so. Charging headfirst into fire it took all the damage from two separate riflemen and kept going. That invisible sword could not help here. All it could do was trust in its armor. The mech charged into the rain of fire and endured until it could not anymore.

Yet that sacrifice allowed its partner to continue. The mech burned everything to continue forward around and then the angel was in reach. The weapon swung, and mid swing something changed. Where before the weapon was invisible, now it was inevitable. Instead of bending light it drank it in. This weapon declared its intention. It stated to reality it would bring victory. It moved forward under that knight's grip and it tore through the wing with that inevitability inherent. The wing exploded as designed, yet the sword wasn't damaged. It couldn't be damaged in this instant. It couldn't be stopped. It would only achieve its victory in that one, critical moment.

The angle was sliced in two. A dedicated and focused mech with a sword was a nightmare in close combat. There was a reason Swordsmen were a dedicated role. With that impossible empowerment the only thing Bolt's creation could have done was keep away. This was a tall order against a light mech's speed.

That perfect, glorious, inevitable sword was also done though. Now it was just a crystal sword. Whatever magic had performed its purpose was used up. Bolt had to blink away the after effects. Was the knight lesser too? It was hard to say. It felt that way.

The copy of his wife didn't much care. The angel charged forward rather than backpedal after its comrade fell. For a moment Bolt was confused as to why, but it became apparent. She didn't want the knight to pick up the sword of the fallen mech.

Naturally the knight meant to do just that. It hefted its crystal sword into a guard position and charged forward. Shotgun blasts rocked its body, but the construction was both sturdy and designed to deal with damage like this. It would not die quickly. The sword lashed out again and the angel stepped into it, deliberately, wing first.

This time the wing worked as designed. Light and kinetic energy were both unleashed from the defensive structure. It obscured vision for a brief second. The result was a ruined sword and a severed wing. About half of the shield was gone, but Bolt's damage containment was enough that some of it would still work. The shield was meant to absorb damage like this. It just couldn't really handle big things like swords without being ruined.

A shotgun shot went off pointblank as the angel capitalized on the close range. The angel drifted back with the blast, and the knight moved to the side, gracefully dropping the ruined sword and continuing to the downed knight. It had a few steps more to go.

What followed next was almost a dance. The graceful angel tried to bodily block the knight and the knight showed off it's own grace in turn. She was both fast and maneuverable, which unfortunately made it so that the angel couldn't pin her down hard enough to keep her from getting her fallen comrade's weapon.

Once it became apparent that the angel couldn't stop her it boosted away harshly. The thrusters fired with all power and the mech rose into the air as it red-lined itself. It switched to the rifle and fired, again, and again. The knight in turn reached down and grabbed at the sword. The head was nearly removed. One arm was blasted off as the mech sacrificed her own limb to lift the weapon.

Inevitable victory, the sword declared as it was activated. It would win despite everything. It flared with light, and then the knight's armor finally gave out as a shot penetrated the armor and through the chest. The mech stepped forward, again, and again despite this. It moved trailing parts. Faster and stronger than it should have been losing power and missing critical infrastructure. It threw the weapon.

Bolt growled internally. It should not have possible. The sword had no balance for this. The mech lacked the force for it. The sword still flew through the air like a laser and impaled the angel. Inevitable victory, of a sort. The knight dropped to the ground, power drained and damaged beyond repair.

"Ooooh, a stunning loss!" The announcer shouted out. "Another round of applause though. Both contestants gave their all!"

The designer huffed as best he could as a shadow. He wasn't that broken up about it. That had been physically impossible in many ways. Was this simulation thing broken?

"Let us watch our designer! When confronted by a dream of impossibility will he buckle like so many others or rise above?" The shadow man asked. "Lovely challenger, what do you see? Nothing of course. You cannot touch it, you cannot see it, so it does not exist no?"

Looking at the knight in front of him, Bolt knew the answer. There'd be nothing mechanically different to the mech. The crystalline sword was obviously made of something exotic. Here and now all he saw was a knight with some sort of mental presence to it. If he took the thing apart he'd break it.

"You've seen this before. The mystery stumps your superiors!" The shadow man laughed. "Better hurry though. We don't have much time left. Oh to be in a world where you can ponder forever, but alas!"

This was a design philosophy in a nascent state. It was something just at the cusp of journeyman. A strong philosophy based off something intangible. Bolt stared at the mech and frowned. Then with a gesture took it apart.

As the sword broke, it became less. As the knight fell into pieces, the perfection became a lie. These were metal parts less than the sum of the whole.

Behind him were the parts of his previous competitor. Bolt examined them, and his own ruined creations. This felt nostalgic. He was in a mech graveyard again. He'd learned in a place like this. Spent months and years in battlefields and junk yards. He could almost smell the coolant spilled on the ground. The fuel and burnt parts.

Why was the dream showing him this? No. This was him showing it himself. This was his core. Where he was forged. In his desire to advance he'd tried to leave it, but he never really had.

The parts flew together. One wing, two wings. The armor flowed. The crystal sword broke apart and fed into the wings. The gauntlets were torn apart and remade. Pushing and pulling. Converting.

Bolt was a scavenger was he not? He took the failed and fallen dreams and remade them. His ethos wasn't some pretty little thing in a lab. It wasn't a beautiful dream of wonder. It was clawing things out of graves. It was using dirty fuel because you didn't have anything better. It was a vulture.

It was a ghoul.

The young man laughed to himself as the simulation destabilized. He'd been a bit of a moron hadn't he? The answer to his questions had been staring right at his face.

 

[lost star]

Bolt found he had only spent a few minutes in the ascension chamber when he came to. The room felt far less mysterious now. The power was gone and he was just sitting in a room with some circles on the ground. He was fairly sure that the thing was completely inert now. No human could make it work once more. Probably none of the makers could either. Something about the configuration and the power sources had been unique. That didn't mean he couldn't use it still. He got to his feet and flexed his back with a crack and began to explore the area with new eyes.

He was stronger in some undiscernible way. More of something. His mind felt more clear and he could see how things were connected. He pondered about what he'd decided in that dream. He was a scavenger eh?

It wasn't that simple. Travis had called his talent little things into big results. His was scavenging. Neither words really encompassed what their skills were. Bolt knew for a fact he didn't need to take dead things. He could call his specialty conversion too. Like with Vermillion, he could hone a design by taking parts of it away. Or like that wing shield. He could convert the incoming damage into other things. He knew instinctually how to do that, and was sure he could math it out and refine it. It was a circle of endless refining. Taking things, improving them, destroying them, and then doing it all over again.

The designer would have to define it better later. That and pushing his limits would probably be core to his advancement. Right now he would be best served by identifying and ripping this apart here. This area was a training area for alien ascension. Many of the funny floating tools were used to hone various senses. Only a few would be useful for humans. The aliens had different senses and anatomy. Bolt could still steal ideas from their work.

Exploring the place with new eyes gave him quite a few insights. This was a place to hone psionic / spiritual skills, whichever terminology you preferred. It was an isolated and restricted area. Many of the tools were meant for elites and elites in training. Most of them didn't make sense to him. Humans just seemed mostly incompatible with all of this. Bolt labeled the useless ones, sketched out how they were made, and requested one of each type preserved in storage if they weren't too big. The rest would be broken apart for the exotic components if it was worth the time to break them down.

All told there were four devices worth anything. The fabricator that made Jade Slips. The device that helped hone one's spiritual focus. The isolation rooms. And a tool designed to assist in visualizing spiritual things.

It was last one was the one Bolt decided to use after exploring. The training tool itself was a floating sphere and the table under it. It functioned like a game of matching cards. It would project things in the spiritual spectrum and then in the visual spectrum. It would the shuffle them. Your job was to match symbols using the spiritual signature.

The aliens had a strange sort of half and half design they favored. About half of their creations were in the physical realm. The other half was in the spiritual realm. They then linked together in a mesh. Bolt would never be able to match their abilities. Even this little almost toy had likely taken years of training to make. There was cultural context that he would never get. It was still useful. Like watching a laser light put a red dot on the table, he could observe the mechanics and derive something from it all.

Here the largest thing to observe was the communication back and forth. The spiritual side communed with standard and known light projection techniques. Bolt could sort of crib that technique to create his own take on something. In this case he took one of the large shoulder mounted cameras they had in their blueprints and adjusted it. Adding different sensors, using a trace amount of exotics to give it a wider range of view, and then carefully cannibalizing one of the more useless tools for spiritual 'parts' to create an unholy amalgamation of parts.

As an aside, the young man wasn't doing this for fun. He was doing it to see if he could manipulate the substance. In the dream he'd seen mechs that did things that were impossible physically. This was his exploration into that concept. Was it possible for a human to make a spiritual construct? If so, how hard was it, how much precision could he use? And so on. Right now the answers were he could, it was very hard, and he was using a stone hammer compared to a high powered precision tool. Practice or tools could hopefully help with a lot of this.

"Why a camera though?" One of the techs asked as Bolt hefted the monstrosity.

"These guys loved to mark important things with their strange psionic stuff. About half their things have markers." Bolt could sense some of it with his new senses if he tried. "Also, this is really me just trying out things." If it worked, he'd done his first spiritual construct. "Starting it up."

With a grin of discovery the young man looked through the camera. To his great joy it looked like it was working. He could see people, which was expected. This was a modified camera. What was better was that he could see other things. The room had some very interesting decorations and labels only visible through this. Also there were strange and fuzzy outlines around the people. The resolution was horrible, but it was better than nothing.

Humming into himself Bolt turned it this way and that way. Then something floated in front of it. The designer paused and slowly panned the camera back. A bloody looking and stained figure moved through the air and draped itself over one of the techs. It almost looked like it was trying to eat him.

Bolt slowly lowered the camera and looked at the tech in question. The man looked rather oblivious, though it was hard to say through the mask. He raised up the camera again and looked. Still there, still gnawing at the totally oblivious man.

"Is it not working?" One of the techs asked.

"Er." Bolt had no idea what to say. "Screwy, are you hearing some whispers?"

The man with the thing draped off him turned to him. "Who hasn't? If you mean have they gotten worse. Yeah. That thing see something then?"

"You could say that." The young man trailed off. "Let's go with me seeing something and leaving it at that." He concluded after a moment. "Let me try something." He moved forward and waved his hand next to the shoulder of the man.

To his mild surprise the spirit floated away from his limb as if scared. Screwy twitched before exhaling. "Hey, whatever you did made it less loud."

"That's good." The designer muttered. "Excuse me while I try to a few things."

Well used to their designer being strange, the other scavengers left him to things. With a grunt Bolt hefted his large device and wandered off, looking at this and that. The bloody and stained things did frequently float by. Some of them latched onto people. Some were already on others. It was more than a little disturbing to view really. It also didn't change much in the end. When Lilly cleared things, this was what she was clearing. Better for people not to know exactly what was causing it at the moment.

They did seem to be avoiding him as well. He wasn't sure if that was because of something new with him or because they always had been. Bolt could wander close to them and they'd float away when they could. Attempting to grab them was hard in that he had to rush and lunge, but they weren't that fast really. He didn't feel anything grabbing them and spiritually they were pretty weak according to his mental senses. The constructions in the device were more vibrant. Based off the accumulation, Bolt assumed it would take a good dozen or more to really cause a person to become effected.

Some further examination led him to see that the spirits did latch onto the mechs too for some reason. Bolt had to assume it was because they were 'solid' for lack of a better word. The mechs had spiritual presence, and he was pretty sure that was where Lilly's warm feelings came about. Dowry in particular was very vibrant and the spirits were actively circling around the thing but not trying to grab her. Perhaps they were avoiding strong things?

Bolt moved to the Jade Slips they'd gathered once his observations were finished. He couldn't do anything about those spirits right now, but he was certain that he could later. There were a lot of blueprints and other technical manuals inside these things. Now that he knew what was possible, he could break down the basics and go from there.

He also handed the camera off to someone trusted, after briefing them about their spooky attackers. The thing was still useful in identifying things and ghosts were something all rats had dealt with before. That these were more visible and louder was just another thing to deal with. So long as the camera man kept quiet everything would be fine. Even if the secret got out it wasn't that large a deal. There'd be a bit of shouting until Lilly cleared things.

 

[lost star]

Lilly waking up and using her power to cleanse people was actually rather fun to see from the camera's perspective. You could see her willpower flex and cause a ripple. That ripple then made all the spirits go flying away as if they'd been shot out of a cannon. It made the camera entertainment rather than a possible morale hazard. Bolt had to fashion a few more of them for everyone else once this became apparent. He also made a few spirit swatters, as his fellows were calling them. Those just clubs that could whack the ghosts. Barely even technology. Just clubs with spiritual essence in them.

"More than a little hilarious." Lilly observed from her place on the truck bench as a few men waving their sticks at nothing through the cameras. "Don't even need the camera or me now. Just wiggle that stick around a person and you'll smack the parasites eventually."

"Cable still wants ya to do it occasionally. We've looted a few of those isolation rooms mobile so you have a place ta rest if it gets too much and it doesn't hurt to be cautious." Bolt responded as he set a slip he'd been reviewing down and grabbed another one.

Lilly nodded and watched her husband work. "So, you advanced?" She asked bluntly.

"Yep." The designer answered simply and paused. "I think." He added with a trace of embarrassment at his inability to really definitely say he'd become a journeyman. "It's not as dramatic as yours is."

"You do feel different. You want to talk about it?" The girl asked in turn.

Bolt shook his head. "I'd need to talk with a senior designer or something first. I'd love ta, but I don't understand enough to really explain it." His lack of background was hurting him in this regard. "Anyway, I think I can finish up the design for your next mech now. After that we just need ta make it, and get someone ta do the resonant materials."

Lilly giggled. "You sound really annoyed by that last bit. But I'll be glad to see it! Dowry is fine, but I'm a bit limited here."

"Yeah, it's why I've been working on it in my spare time." The designer picked up another Slip and paused. "Actually, one moment." He set the little green crystal down and looked through the ones they had with purpose. He needed a specific one.

For ease they'd labeled all the things with tape and markers. The blasted things required effort to connect to and parse. A book had a label. These things were just crystals. Even in spiritual sight they weren't particularly different. It made finding the right one a pain in the rear end. You had to take a few seconds to connect and then review the data inside.

"I think... I could make it now." Bolt muttered while reviewing the data instructing one how to operate the construction devices. Ideas raced through his head and what he'd seen in the dream surged through him. He could do that!

The statement caught Lilly off guard. "How?" She asked incredulously.

It was a good question. They hadn't brought fancy manufacturing systems that could refine new stuff from raw materials. They did have a lot of exotics, but that was raw and unshaped stuff from looting. They'd brought part fabricators that could only handle refined stuff, because those were both cheaper and far easier to transport. However Bolt had an idea that'd been triggered by his expanded endurance.

"That alien manufacturing facility we were in could make the parts if I could use it right, and I'm positive I can do that now. I'd rate it as a high level second rate device properly used. The aliens had very good manufacturing skills." Bolt explained. "Their mech design was just shit."

"I mean if you could I wouldn't object." Lilly trailed off and tapped at her communicator. "Hey Cable, we're heading back to the fort right?"

"It's a good central point to plan and recover yes." The man replied.

"Bolt thinks he could make me a new mech there. That a good idea?" She said without fanfare and with suppressed eagerness.

The older man didn't reply for a moment. "Would you function better with it? Some of the possible plans go into the high danger zones. We'll need you to push through and need ya at top form." He eventually asked.

Uncharacteristically Lilly hesitated and then turned to Bolt. "Got a rundown fer me?" She inquired softly.

Bolt hummed and brought up the design on his comm and notated it specifically for the young woman before handing it over. She reviewed it carefully with a serious frown on her face. It was a far cry from her usual look. This was Lilly being officially responsible. Switching mechs was an issue for most people, and the completely different specs were something that she needed to account for. He could see the calculation going through her.

"Travel time to our targets?" Lilly inquired clinically as she continued to review the blueprint.

"A day, maybe more. We're hitting up at thirty days now. At most I want ta do another thirty." The old man responded.

The expert nodded and narrowed her eyes. "It'd be worth it. Dowry is a skirmisher. In these tunnels she's not optimal and has limited use. The new mech is a defensive striker. Even without resonance I'd be far more effective."

"Then if you can do it quick we can account for that." Cable gave the order.

Bolt nodded at the comm in Lilly's hand and began to get to work refining things. He'd been spending months on the design so it was already fairly done. He just needed to adjust it with the new information and skills he had. He also had to be sure that they had the right materials in their raw stuff.

Honestly it was a bit insane trying to make an expert mech like this. They required precision and dedicated focus. Bolt wouldn't have even tried had he not been with the best of their techs and had that alien device. Of course this all predicated on the device working as he expected. He worked with the assumption that it would. His inspiration and intuition all told him that it would!

The travel time felt too short really. Despite the hardship, the cold, and the task ahead of them, Bolt and his fellows felt eager. Victory and the possibility of more felt sweet. There was also a distinct sense of satisfaction. They were sticking it to a few greedy people by taking the exotics and using them now. It was a silly feeling, but Rats could be petty.

Bolt ignored most of that as he focused. The alien creation device wasn't actually designed for mechs. It was a repurposed construction tool that they'd shoehorned into making their mech analogs according to their documentation. It took matter, made it liquidy (technical term,) refined it as necessary, and shaped it as they desired. In theory it could be used for a lot of things. If Bolt was able to hook it up to a supercomputer it could probably make a mech wholesale within a few minutes. The aliens had almost criminally underused the device.

Due to limitations Bolt couldn't do anything fancy. He had it do part by part. This was a mentally taxing process that he wouldn't have tried earlier. He had to take the part from his comm, get the details down in his head, and then transfer it to the alien machine to have it created. He was genuinely surprised he was managing to do it at all.

He started with the feathers. These were the most numerous and delicate part of the operation. There were two parts to this. One was crystal feathers. These crystals had been pulled from the data he had examining the mech known as the Crystal Lord, and his dream. They absorbed some light and mitigated the wing's critical weakness against laser weaponry. The other was the emitters he'd developed in the dream. The two would mesh to create a flexible shield that could deflect energy and physical impacts.

Calling it delicate was a bit strange for something that was meant to be destroyed. A shield was going to take damage. You wanted the opposite of delicate. It was delicate in the assembly process. The crystals and emitters had to be precisely aligned and arranged before being affixed properly. Once it was done the thing would be very durable and actually regenerate small damage. It just had to be done correctly.

The mech would have two of these wings.

Fortunately despite the coverage these wings needed to have, they actually didn't need an excessive amount of material The crystals were the hardest part. If you made them too big they'd shatter. There was a trick he didn't know to make the large ones. Bolt didn't need it for this. All he needed was the laser absorption effect.

After the feather were the skeleton. This was a custom work. Most third rate mechs used a standard steel composite. It was durable, cheap, and easy to manufacture for repairs. Bolt went with a laced skeleton. It was harder and more expensive to make. It was more conductive to electricity. This was important for later.

The muscles were next and fairly standard for expert mechs. High quality, but stuff they could manufacture in their part makers. Not something Bolt had to pay explicit attention to. He could even delegate that a bit.

Armor was next. Here Bolt put some lessons from the aliens into play. They were masters of heat and energy distribution. Their mech designs were shit, but that part was indisputable. Bolt put in little, almost decorative patterns on the mech. When properly laced and installed, they'd transfer energy and heat throughout the body. They would even slowly draw more from the environment. Excess heat would be vented through the collar and would form into a halo above the head.

All of this created a monster of a defensive mech already. The wings, the body, all of it was durable and substantially resistant to most forms of damage. This did not address the offense.

Those would be two gauntlets. On the surface these things were very simple. They had spike-like daggers that could be thrown out with a combination of physical and electromagnetic forces. Then they'd be recalled. They essentially looked like daggers attached to clawed gloves.

His fellows were rather amused at how he'd managed to make all the parts. It had been very fast despite how taxing it had been. There were even a few people wondering if they could steal the manufacturing stuff too. (The answer was not really. It was both large and embedded into the ground.)

Assembling the mech was slow and steady as they carefully adjusted everything to fit. They had no set deadline, but they did want it done. The skeleton was hoisted up and assembled. The muscles inlaid. Then Bolt added a few small almost stone like parts to the feet. Mentally he called that the Greed system. One of the experimental parts. He had no idea how well it would work. In theory it would pull electricity from nearby enemies over a large area. Basically a debilitating aura.

Pride was the wings naturally. Those took hours to align and precisely construct. They were secured on the back once finished and stretched out. They'd be shiny, eye-catching, and quite stunning.

Envy was the armor. It would channel all it could towards the core of the mech. Some would be vented up when necessary, but the rest would be consumed to power the mech and its weapons. The patterns were specially laced with exotics. Expensive as hell, but worth it for an expert mech. This was actually the least experimental of the stuff.

Lust was silly. Bolt had added a Jade Slip and a reader to the cockpit. Theoretically it'd function as a backup repository for the mech's system and allow him to get feedback from Lilly in a more visceral way. He'd also tied a few systems to it in the hopes that it'd make the backup more potent. It was the thing he anticipated adjusting the most.

Wrath was obvious. The gauntlets and their throwing daggers. More specifically the dagger throwing mechanism. It was a complicated alignment of various electromagnetic forces. Bolt was least confident about the retrieval mechanism. An enemy could likely demagnetize the daggers if they had specific counters. Admittedly if they did that then he considered it a minor win. It wouldn't stop the throwing part. Theoretically it would scale with more power but at standard power it would be rather lethal.

Gluttony was actually in the hands. More specifically the palms. They used a bit of the alien's shaping techniques. Bolt had broken apart one of the alien devices to make it once he figured out how to replicate and repair it. His variation was too slow to be a real weapon, but a slap on armor would soften it up, and if the mech had about half a minute it could replace it's daggers from anything metallic.

Sloth was admittedly something he'd added to the mech once he'd realized he'd realized he only had six systems. It was a relatively simple thing. The mech could go completely cold and run without a generator for a few seconds. It could also possibly run just on the siphoning system. This hinged on Greed working as expected. It would give minor advantages and could be an interesting quirk, but Bolt didn't anticipate it being regularly used.

All put together the mech looked beautiful. Bolt knew it looked lovely in a different way too. The reason Greed had been so theoretical was because he'd deliberately focused on doing a spiritual component with this mech. He had absolutely no idea if it would work as expected. The theory was sound. A focused ideal with a purpose and a spiritual backing. All of it wound together to create a mech's identity.

"Have Lilly do the first start." Bolt ordered the men and winced as a bit of pain throbbed through his temple.

He'd had a bit too much fun playing with the toys. His vision doubled as he moved and he staggered as a sudden wave of exhaustion hit. Damnit. Now that he was thinking about it, why did he do so many experimental things?! You had to test all of that beforehand! He'd have to study it all to figure out what he'd done!!!

The designer cursed to himself mentally. That ascension chamber had given him a surge of something. It should work as expected, but it would all be unpredictable as to how well! Did his breakthrough do something? Bolt calmed himself and stifled a groan as exhaustion made itself known.

It was very probable that he'd gotten too caught up in new ideas here.

 

[lost star]

The mech's name was Morning Star.

She was absolutely gorgeous. Every part of her was a work of art. Her wings glittered. Her armor had elaborate patterns that complimented every line of our body. The helmet looked almost like it had a crown. She was slim and graceful, and even had heels for some silly reason. She looked like a mech made for fashion. Not an expert's mech. Only the gauntlets hinted at something else. Large and clawed, they each had six spike-like daggers attached to the outside. It felt fitting. It turned her from a pretty ornament to a lethal weapon.

Lilly loved all the mechs Bolt made, but this one felt special in a way. She felt... Complete was the best word for it. Warm yes, but also warm with purpose. This one had a enough of a presence that everyone could tell she was special. There was an aura there that demanded acknowledgement. Dowry would always hold a special place in her heart. She had to admit this one might be better in more circumstances.

"Few things since I didn't have time for through documentation." Bolt said with a long yawn and a bleary look at his wife. "Her movement is going to be tricky. She's meant to shift at will and the wings make her top heavy. If the wings get hit by small hits they'll regenerate small damage over about half a second. I put some of Dowry's nanomachines in the wing bases to facilitate that. They'll be able to repair machine gun hits and the like. Bigger hits will cause damage that needs ta be repaired like normal. Use the Jade Slip in the cockpit to get a feel of the systems. I put my impressions in there."

Lilly nodded seriously as she examined the mech with a critical eye. "Is that armor fragile? Looks fancy."

Bolt yawned again and staggered slightly. "No." He shook his head as he let his wife support him a bit, which nearly crushed her because of how large he was, but she'd deal with it. "The patterns are just fer electricity and heat transfer. That's the most efficient way of doing it. Expect them to light up slightly when in use, but they're just an added layer of energy defense. It's armor and will work as such. Expensive ta repair but meant to be damaged."

"It's only been a day. How are you so wiped out?!" Lilly demanded with worry at his condition.

The designer gave a light laugh. "I pushed too hard." He groaned at the motion and held his head. "Also, I need sleep. Think I had a thing sorta like what happened to you when you broke through."

Lilly nodded slowly and got a pair of men to manhandle the man to bed. She then grabbed one of the service ladders and ascended to the cockpit of her mech. This was the first real activation. It was time to see how she ran, and what Bolt had made. Was it a lady or a monster?

The mech started with an almost pulling sensation. Lilly connected to it and felt something like a grab. One that she easily fended off with a raised eyebrow. For a moment she could feel the mech staring at her somehow. They she reached out a hand to grab at a control and she could feel the mech reach back with less force and more care.

"Opinionated little thing aren't you?" Lilly murmured to her ride while accepting the mental handshake.

Morning Star was more alive than anything else she'd ever piloted. It wasn't bad. Just different enough to be noticeable. Once she'd connected properly the mech's insistence settled down and became quiet. It was soothing now, complete. The connection was like with Dowry but more intense. Not bad. Just intense.

Taking a step out of the construction cradle showed another quirk. Her balance was on a knives edge. Each step demanded precision and effort. The reason why was pretty obvious. Stability had been sacrificed in favor of the ability to shift her footing in an instant. Lilly could quick step and dance if she needed. It was like the Shrine Maiden but even more extreme. This was a design that only an expert could bring to it's full potential. This was a fine trade off in her opinion. Not every mech had to be easy to use. For something specifically for her, it was perfect.

Function checks were next. Give the wings a flap. Wiggle arms, then fingers. Head could move as needed. Then the weapon. Lilly started up one of the gauntlets and felt the charge in them. Then ordered the auto-diagnostic to report. All green naturally, but it reported properly. After all of that she turned and examined the cockpit.

There as he'd said was a Jade Slip. It was different than the alien ones. Those were little crystals. This was a metal lined block with green in the center of it. More durable, more human. Lilly didn't even need to touch it. It was already linked to the mech's system. She just needed to mentally link through her helmet.

One thing immediately made her chuckle. "Really? Lust?" She gave a giggle. Naming specific functions after the seven deadly sins was very amusing. "Could someone put a disposable generator out in front of me?" She asked over the open comms once she'd gone through the specifications. She very much appreciated the lack of reading needed using this system.

While that was happening Lilly sauntered around to get a feel of the mech's movement. Graceful. Sexy almost. A few quick flares of the booster let her know she could almost float through the air. Not quite, but very close. Bolt had honed the grace and dexterity of this mech to an absurd degree. It was almost a heavy in armor and a solidly medium in speed, but she doubted any mech could match how easily it could shift position.

Once the generator was in front of her Lilly activated Greed and flinched from the sudden and unexpected weight. All systems caused a certain mental load on the pilot. This one was hefty. Nothing she couldn't handle, but it had not been expected. The effect on the target was small for the effort as well. She could see little lightning shocks coming from the generator. That was about it. Mildly disappointing visually.

"How's the draw on generator?" Lilly asked the techs watching.

"We're noticing a small load." The tech responded. "It fluctuates from ten to twenty percent."

That wasn't horrible, but she wasn't sure it was worth the mental effort she was expending. The expert frowned. "Damage?"

"Some. I don't want to send a tech to physically check. We're all feeling a bit of a... Well pressure. Also I don't like those electrical surges." The tech sounded hesitant as he relayed the observation.

"Hmmm." Lilly hummed out and mentally shifted the 'settings' on Greed to designate friendlies. "Does that help?"

"No more pressure." The tech said with audible confusion.

"Ok, I hate to do this, but get two zombies in here. Send my apologies to the pilots." The girl ordered as she started to make mental calculations about what she was seeing.

This was faster than getting the generator. Two of the zombies walked in from guard duty and Lilly could immediately both feel and tell when they entered range of Greed. They flinched slightly and small electrical arcs sparked from their mechs. Furthermore her energy consumption was shifting from the generator and energy cells to just the Greed system. Extrapolating, if she had enough enemies in range she could essentially run off their power instead of her own.

"What sort of monster did you make?" Lilly asked breathlessly off channel before mentally tagging the people as friendly. "Check those mechs for damage and report."

Greed had serious potential just based off that. Sure it wouldn't kill, but if she got Morning Star into a crowd her endurance would be functionally unlimited. That sort of endurance was absolutely worth the trouble. The damage report from the mechs also indicated trace electrical damage to everything as well. Lilly could see her bringing down small armies without touching them with just this. It'd take forever but it'd be possible.

Lilly paused. She should probably test the weapons before she made her final conclusion. Right now this was just promising theory. With a mental switch she gestured with one hand. Six daggers flew out with a small blast of electricity and embedded themselves in a nearby plate they'd setup for weapon testing. Lilly raised an eyebrow. Not bad. Her mech made a pulling motion and the daggers returned, ripping themselves out of the metal and neatly clipping back onto the outside of the gauntlets with a blur.

Truthfully it wasn't spectacular. Deadly, unpredictable, and dangerous, but decidedly low for an experts offensive weapon. If there was a flaw it was there. The daggers moved slow enough for an expert to react to. Lilly, as an expert could easily mow down people with this configuration, but that was utterly identical to all other experts. It was a niggling issue in an otherwise fairly impressive design. She'd have to speak with Bolt about applying the resonance materials there later.

"When combined with the rest this is pretty good still." Lilly evaluated.

All together she rated it as an impressive defensive mech that made sensible trade offs in performance. The attack was relatively efficient for a weapon at least. Perfect for grinding down opponents if used properly with the rest of the systems. Lilly would have to take this girl into combat to really get a feel for her, but that was fine. So far she liked the mech. It wasn't instant love. This mech had the potential to impress her. She wasn't yet.

She'd reserve conclusions until they'd gotten into a serious fight.

 

[lost star]

They were taking a serious risk now. Before they'd been pure scavengers. Darting at the outside, looking for weak points, being very careful. With Lilly's new mech and the ability to both fend off the whispers and let her rest without interruption they had a different option now. They were going to batter down a gate.

Their maps showed many things nearby the fortress. One of those things was labeled major settlement. It wasn't surprising. Fortress world or not, it was still a world. It needed place to live and support people. Cable had crossed it out because things like that were typically heavily defended. It had not been feasible to attack it. Now it was.

Travel time would be a bit tight. They'd go over the two month limit they'd planned for. The extra supplies made this feasible though, and they still had intact FTL transmitters. So they went.

And things immediately got harder. The little claymen went from being occasional hazards to veritable armies. Not just a few, dozens. All of them in the tunnels, on the walls, and the ceilings. Almost as if they were waiting for someone to try something.

Lilly could have easily cleared it. They let her do the first one to test out Morning Star. It... Wasn't really a test. The mech walked in, was shot at, the wings deflected everything, and then all of the claymen died within seconds. The flying blades it used to fight wiped out entire hordes at once, and the draining system ate the rest. The only thing it showed was that an expert could wipe out a horde, which wasn't something special. Dowry would have done the same, only slower because she'd have to move to fight them all.

After that they kept their expert in reserve and sent in the Bloody Berserkers and Zombies to both get experience and conserve Lilly's stamina. These mechs were almost tailor made for the situation. They could charge in and remove vast swaths of enemies, and deal with the traps as well. Sure they took damage, but only to their armor. They had an almost excessive amount of materials for that. They were also able to salvage some more from the bodies. Not much. The stone was useless. The stuff it was laced with was worth the time if you found choice parts. (Rats were very good at finding choice parts quickly.)

For a time that was all their trouble. Mostly claymen, snakes, and spiders. All of them were relatively easy to deal with. It was easy to forget that these aliens had fought the MTA and made them take losses. They would be reminded.

The event happened as the tunnels widened out and once they were very deep. It should have been warmer at this point. It wasn't. It was somehow colder instead. The mechs were frosting over if they were left still too long. People really didn't want to leave their vehicles if they could. That was when the alien's real defenses started coming into play.

Lilly reacted first, as befit an expert. It didn't help. The attack came from above. Beams of heat striking from the ceiling. One hit a Zombie dead on. The strike melted the mech in an instant. No chance to dodge, no ability to defend against it. Several tones of metal turned molten in an instant. A candle versus a blowtorch.

More beams came down. Most of the mechs managed to dodge somewhat after the first strike. Some lost limbs. There were few deaths. None of the vehicles were targeted, though that was likely due to them keeping far to the rear of the formation. Missiles flew up as the Cerberus switched to the hellfire missiles and fired at the likely emitters. Fire dripped down from the ceiling as the beams stopped.

Then the forth group of constructs came into play. They didn't bother with stealth or speed. They walked in. Twice the size of a mech, all stone. Molten lines ran up and down their bodies, and a single glowing eye dominated their front. The claymen's big brother. Dubbed immediately Cyclops.

Around them a small army moved forward to reinforce them. Hundreds of claymen, spiders, and even snakes. They all moved forward like a veritable monster horde.

The Bloody Berserkers charged in first. They didn't even wait for orders The boosted into the enemy lines like bowling balls. Stone monsters went flying every which way and they performed large whirling spins to shatter what they could before moving in front of the largest things and slamming their hammers into the torsos.

The Cyclops barely seemed to notice. Their bodies cracked some, but they simply attempted to backhand their opposing forces with one large meaty hand. Several of the heavy mechs went flying several steps as the backhand hit them, both rattling the mechs and nearly breaking them in a single strike.

"Don't target the eye!" Lilly called out as she moved to the front.

Twelve blades shot out and peppered one stone colossus. Some hit the eye and the trapped part exploded in a retaliatory measure, annihilating a few of Lilly's blades. Molten stone flowed out of the wounds it had taken and removed the damage it had taken. The expert backed up and began to strike out with her blades in random spots, probing for weaknesses.

Command was not Lilly, as much as people had wanted to. She'd explicitly deferred command due to scenarios just like this. The current command was an Undertaker pilot. One of the two that they'd brought. He was no one of note, he was competent and trained by Lilly. That was it. He made mistakes. In this case it was a good one. While he was relaying commands he reflexively shot at the enemy Lilly was fighting. The endothermic ammo that was the default ammunition hit the Cyclops and it cooled slightly. The self repair slowed.

Lilly and everyone else noted this. They changed tactics immediately and commands were thrown out. The Berserkers shifted back, clearing the lines of the chaff with the rest of their forces. The zombies moved forward to present themselves as targets while the Drowned Men moved to the side.

Their expert moved forward to draw all the attention she could. The Cyclops, lacking intelligence or direction moved to intercept her. Their eyes glowed and heat radiated all in front of them. A heat induction ray with extreme range and power flowed over Lilly's mech.

"Hahaha!" Lilly laughed loudly as they focused on her. With her resonance shield and the mech's configuration, this sort of attack was less than worthless.

Morning Star drank it up. Greed was amped up to the max. Electricity flowed around the mech as the engravings on the armor began to smolder and distribute the heat the mech was handling. A halo of lightning appeared around her head. The gauntlets screamed as power was fed into them and then the blades seemed to flicker and dance. Each second more power was fed into them, and the speed of those little blades increased. They didn't even return to the gauntlets after a few seconds. They just flickered through the air and cut and stabbed as the frequency was changed almost too fast to see. Some even shattered and they shards kept moving.

Around the mech the Cyclopes started to lose chunks as Lilly simply focused on ripping parts off them. They approached without a care for the damage, some swung hands, others kept that terrible heat inducing beam on her. None of it mattered. Morning Star danced between them, endured, and tore chunks off them. Every second turned her into more of a blur of lightning and metal. Bolt's creation was feeding off the energy of battle and all that power was turning pouring into the Wrath system.

Behind her the Undertakers continued to fire. Their endothermic shots gummed up the cyclops. The massive stone constructs started to slow. Their regeneration stopped as the heat they used to heal themselves started to be leached. Crumbling parts started to stay crumbled.

Had there been a mind behind the constructs, the tactics would have been changed. Lilly was there, she was prominent, but she was utterly untouchable. What her mech couldn't dodge, it could tank. The wings snapped out and caught projectiles with flashes of light and energy. The central body of her mech had not been touched at all. Only the radiant heat from the cyclops eye was doing damage, and it was such a paltry amount that Morning Star could endure it for hours. She was an invincible target that they should have ignored.

This was the only reason Bolt's people had a chance. The conflict was drawing in other forces as it progressed. More and more enemies started to come in. While Lilly became a cross between a wall and a blender, the rest of the mechs still had to pull their weight so that the number advantage could not become too much.

Everyone here had been personally trained by Lilly. They were not elites by any means. These were older pilots that were, well mediocre, to put it politely. The best the rats had to offer in the time they'd had available.

Despite this, they were used to following the leader into hell. These men and women pilots morale was tied to Lilly. So long as she stood, and she was standing magnificently, they would fight.

Bolt's dedicated attention to rugged repair and durable design came into play here. The snakes and spiders were not particularly threatening in small numbers. A large army was a different matter. They'd get up close in a suicidal fashion and deal whatever damage they could. A zombie could easily crush one. They could crush two. When ten came around alongside the claymen shooting you started to get problems.

Mechs dropped from damage as the battle progressed. They were hauled back and repaired. They were forced onto their feet with patches and barely bolted on plating. They ran right back into the fight without hesitation. The dogs were the worst of it. That was just because they needed frequent missile reloads, and remaking the specialized stuff took time.

Bolt fixed it the simplest way he could in between frantic repairs. He switched the missiles they were using to the dumbest things available. Stupid rockets that held what amounted to rocks as payloads. They were simple, brutal, and they'd work against their targets. It turned the mech into a rather poor rifleman, but it made them useful. (The more expensive ordinance was wasted on chaff anyway.)

What saved them was enemy stupidity. One of the Cyclops would likely have been able to fight a berserker one versus one and win handily. The small army of them that came through with support would have crushed everyone but Lilly. Had the big things attacked their supply line they would have won. Lilly needed support if she was going to survive past the battle.

Instead they attacked the closest thing they could. Lilly stepping up and into the fray had them all focusing on her as a priority and then on anyone else they could reach as a secondary target. If she was up far enough they'd just try to fight her. The Undertakers could therefore slowly freeze them to death while the expert handled their attention.

Without the heavy hitters the enemy was limited to the lesser types. They were chaff that Bolt's allies could crush. Attrition might have been an issue had the enemy again not been stupid. If a mech went down, another one stepped up over it, and the enemy focused on them. It made it trivial for some of the Wench Rats to sneak up and tow the downed mech away.

For hours they fought like this. The enemy threw themselves at the group without a care for lives or other concerns. It was like dealing with a bot who's only tactic was to throw enemy forces at a target. A group here, a trickle there, sometimes a small army, but more frequently ones and twos. The automation was pulling all their forces to deal with the attackers, and could not think of any other response.

The silence, when it came was overwhelming. One moment Lilly's blades were cutting into something, and the next there was nothing as the last construct fell. They waited a few minutes in silence as they took a breather. Then a few minutes more as they did desperate repairs and salvage in case more were coming.

It took a long few hours before they had to conclude there were no other forces. The enemy had literally thrown everything they had at them. That meant decisions had to be made. What to do next, what the plan was now, and so on.

The immediate was pretty easy. They needed to clean up the battlefield. There were so many piles of stone that they'd have to clear a path, and then they needed to get everything repaired. It would not do to start looting and get crushed because they hadn't gotten everything fixed.

 

[lost star]

When Cable had reviewed the data, he'd gone through several dozen possible sites. Some of them were fairly obvious. Others less so. The ascension site for instance had been relatively small and valuable. This place was not small. It'd been labeled as a settlement. Alien technology or not, logistics was a fact of reality. A fortress needed food and materials. It needed support personnel. All of that was best to centralize. Hence the hopes that the city would be worth looting.

Bolt immediately had second thoughts upon viewing it after the cleanup. The place was a mess of stalagmite and stalactites turned into buildings. It had twisted paths all over, complete with rope bridges and hair raising paths up and down. It was a nightmare when added to the whispers. The now loud whispers. It looked like one of the big sources was here possibly. There wasn't a visual tell even with the sensors they had now. The ghosts were very much avoiding Lilly and Morning Star.

"God almighty that's going to be hell to get through." Someone cursed.

Cable gave a grunt. "Nothing to it. I don't anticipate traps in the main throughways. Send in a few rat cars while we're finishing up anyway to check. You all get a day of free reign and exploration before we haul the good stuff. Remember some richies like to trap their vaults. Don't be stupid and don't break our last camera as well!"

Bolt could feel the anticipation there. This promised to be a motherload, and free reign meant they could pocket things. Everyone was going to be paid after this, but no salvager worthy of the name would object to more trinkets. It certainly galvanized the crew, and everyone put their backs into getting the battlefield cleaned up.

Once all of that was finished the pilots took up guard positions and the rest started moving into the city. Bolt joined them. He wanted to find where the whispers were coming from. Half out of curiosity and half out of hope that he could make them stop. They were getting really annoying. He'd been more resistant to them lately, but that didn't mean he liked listening to them! (Also, he'd had a migraine off and on since he'd made Morning Star. He was recovering, but damn didn't he know better than to push himself like that again.)

Traversing the city was unpleasantly difficult. Sure a lot of the paths had guard rails, but they were thin things with significant inclines or declines. They twisted through places without rhyme or reason, and all of it was a pain in the rear to navigate. How the natives got around was impossible to say. Bolt had a feeling that there was a lot of climbing involved. There were more than a few places with ladder like cuts into the walls.

His destination turned out to be a strangely mundane one. It was a squat building with what looked to be a landing pad on top. Out of all the buildings, it was the only fully squared one. The walls were fortified and the doors locked. Cutting into the place was impossible with their hand tools due to the armored door and walls. Getting a mech to the area would have involved getting that mech through passages meant for people. Possible with digging and explosives. Not something they wanted to do immediately.

Fortunately they had alternatives. All secured doors had some sort of flaw to them. There was a reason you had people manning defenses. If you didn't, all one needed was time and effort. Bolt's people were very, very good at getting through that sort of thing, and he'd learned all the lessons.

This one wasn't easy, but it ultimately just required a few prybars, some acid, and time. The latter was the hardest because the screaming was getting bad this close. It got really annoying when he found a second door too. Bolt was cursing their security measures as he endured the very irritating mental noise.

His uncharitable thoughts were stopped when he got the second door open and could see what was inside.

There was one thing in the building. Nothing else. This was where the screams were coming from. The muffled sounds of torment and insanity. All of them were coming from this. It was a pit. A maw with no bottom. Blades covered the sides, and some of them had bit of rust still on them. This close it drew his attention like nothing else could. It let like he was seeing a kindred soul. Bolt could intuitively tell what it was. It offered its secrets freely. A thing that converted flesh and souls into power. There was no price for the knowledge. It was a maw that waited patiently for food, and was generous in every way.

It also washed over him with absolutely no effect. Bolt knew in his core that this thing was a darker path he could take. He'd long since rejected it. When people talked about 'sacrifice' they frequently meant people like him and his family. He'd rather be dead and buried than even consider something like what this insidious whatever it was offered.

"You know, I was wondering about the lack of bodies." Bolt noted out loud while enduring the mental assault. An settlement like this should have had at least a few bodies, even if it'd been evacuated. There'd been nothing.

He turned away and closed the door behind him. Then he made his laborious way back and activated one of the fabricators they had. He needed to make something. Something very special for a very special enemy.

The Hellfire compound they used for the dog's missiles was a volatile and particularly potent blend of exotics and fuel. Creating a small container that could carry some of it required a special blend of alloys. He managed after a bit. It helped that he didn't need something fancy.

This one whispered a bit if you listened to it too. The whisper was soft and contained. Human. It was just a statement that everything burned. The young man focused on that rather than the insidious worming temptation that had tried to snare him. Bolt was even able to add to it. He pushed out everything else in his head as he moved. Combustion was a conversion. Fire was frequently purifying. This fire would purify and destroy everything he wanted it to.

Once at the building he opened the first door. Then he opened the second door. He put a timer on the container of Hellfire, and threw it into the pit without thinking. He then closed both doors and rested against the wall. Only then did he allow himself to think again.

With both doors closed he couldn't see the result of his arson immediately. He couldn't even hear anything. He knew when it happened just based off his internal timer. It became even more clear when the whispers started to drop in intensity. They didn't go away. If that hole reached as far as Bolt thought it did, and was as large as it was, they wouldn't go away for centuries. They were reduced.

The young man made sure to mark the door as a do not open and welded it shut for good measure. He then moved onto looting. He needed a palate cleanser, and this would do it. He'd lost so much time doing this!

Not that the lost time mattered much. They were going to have to spend days identifying what they wanted. Bolt's excursion aside, it wasn't easy identifying the buildings even with their tools. The aliens had actually physically marked things here, but that wasn't helping. No one could understand their scratchings. Bolt was pretty sure Cable had planned it that way. Let everyone blow off some steam looting and then swoop in to grab the real good stuff for the team.

The designer wasn't really interested in the stuff that had monetary value anyway. He wanted the information! Thus he was going to go around and document the paths and buildings. There were probably a few secured areas with the good and hidden knowledge. He wanted that.

He wasn't the only one with this idea of course. The Rats had a system of sorts for things like this! It wasn't anything fancy really. Just a lot of taped signs and spray-paint everywhere. It did liven things up and make it far easier to find things. As did some controlled demolition. The twisted pathways were enough of a pain that no one objected to just tearing apart some areas.

It wasn't like they were preserving the place after all. This was a dead city of a dead race on a dead planet. There wasn't anything worth keeping around.

 

[lost star]

Bolt's fellows were in the process of dismantling the city. There was no other way to describe it. The city would be no more shortly. They weren't being gentle. They weren't being slow. It was strip mining. And that was ok. There were plenty of other cities hidden on this planet, and it was the only real way to find everything. The aliens loved hidden rooms and isolated vaults.

Case in point he'd found this strange storage area in a basement equivalent. It had been hidden in a fancy compound, behind a hidden door, and then protected by a series of traps. It didn't even have a lot in it. A rather expensive exotic in a stone container and a few Jade Slips. The exotic was small enough he could lift it with one hand. It would also probably cover the entire trip alone. (So far as rarity went, this meant it was decidedly middling.)

The Slips themselves were not particularly worthwhile for the most part. They detailed alien concepts around their 'advancement' and the like. Functionally useless for humans because it was tailored to them. Also more than a little abhorrent, because a lot of their more noted advancements required a form of blood sacrifice. Bolt was seriously debating destroying them really. He did not want some power hungry moron with more ambition than sense getting ideas.

Only a few of the Slips from this cache were potentially useful. Some were very basic instruction manuals. He'd gotten documentation for a lot of things already, but these were things for beginners. The basic textbooks in other words. Extremely useful once he could parse it all. This went double for the one technique he actually wanted to adapt and implement.

Basically as one got further into designing and such one needed mental enhancements. This typically came in the form of brain implants. Those were expensive, with a capital E, and getting one surgically embedded was both complicated and was best done only once. If Bolt wanted to compete with real advanced designers he would need one. The best ones were worth something on the order of a thousand expert mechs. The good ones would probably take a decade of dedicated savings. (He was a designer of third rate mechs. Even with his income, he was still at the bottom.)

These alien techniques were a good alternative. It would take time, but Bolt could make one for himself using the processes detailed in this Slip if he could properly translate the concepts. He even had the materials so to speak. The aliens had left more than a few basic spiritual constructs in the city. He had detailed instructions on how to break them apart and store them. Spiritual containers just looked like smooth round stones and they were practically everywhere. No one would object to him grabbing a few crates of them. He'd barely used his personal allotment of tonnage.

The constructions would also help him understand how to refine what he was doing with mechs too. It'd take a lot of work, but it was just a new field of mech design. Teaching himself a new field by breaking things apart was nothing new.

Which led him to most dangerous Slip he'd found. That one he was definitely going to destroy after memorizing things. He wasn't even going to speak about what was in it. In fact he'd barely even think about it because it detailed some political considerations that he was quite sure were distinctly classified at the highest level. As in wipe him and his planet out. Fortunately his mind wasn't monitored, and he'd hopefully be able to conceal this with the mental tools should the topic come up.

Honestly Bolt rather wished he hadn't been able to interpret it so well. Memories in Jade Slips were typically rather hard to parse. This one was distinct. The one who'd recorded it had a disciplined mind and a need to be sure that the memories were recorded. There were two in particular that had been very vivid.

"In conclusion, the human constructs defy logical sense and physics in the same breath. The warships at least follow the laws of reality as we know them. The constructs mimicking their forms do not." The apprentice's words flowed through the bearer, and there was a sense of pride there.

"Of course they don't." The bearer said and paused as he evaluated his apprentice.

These aliens weren't attractive by any measure. They were like moles in human form. Not the cute type either. The ugly type, with claws and distorted forms. Whatever the bearer saw was apparently enough to impress him though and he leaned forward.

"The humans are bolstered by constructs they pull their power from. It makes their creations work. The things they call mechs specifically have a foundational masterpiece that has been carefully hidden from the eye and senses." He said slowly. "We've spent our entire war drawing out details. Carefully, quietly. It is not spoken of in casual conversation. It is a mountain that we're quite sure they'd stolen for their use. We are but pebbles against it."

The apprentice stared at his mentor. The emotional context indicated that he was distressed. "That scale makes our task seem impossible. How can we win?"

"As carefully as we examined them. We pick apart it piece by piece." The mentor said with warmth. "You've already helped. The Volcano class constructs were inspired. Continue with your work and allow me to continue picking the locks they've placed on their stolen creation. Perhaps when I have it, your creations will become equal to them rather than just chaff to distract."

"Master, calling them chaff is offensive!" The young alien protested.

"They're useful chaff." The mentor joked with some pride. "If I'm right, they'll become invaluable too. We just need to touch that thing once and we'll have victory. Stolen things can be stolen again, and the despair they'll face would be delicious."

Bolt wasn't one to take their words for granted, but that sort of conclusion was corroborated by several other memories of his attempts at doing something spiritually to captured mechs and pilots. This token was some master's personal memorial. The memories that he'd treasured. He'd been the equivalent of a scientist and his apprentice had pioneered the constructs that he'd fought. (His designs were still shit.) That alone had been disturbing, but the other memory had been dangerous.

"The warship's strikes have hit the core." The bearer felt nothing but weary as they heard the words. "The World-Fury Thermal Lance is destroyed. The power taps are running wild due to the damage and lost controls. The temperature of the entire planet is dropping and will continue to drop."

"Can we do nothing?" The bearer asked only to see a gesture that meant a negation.

"Nothing." The speaker said with resignation in his tone. "All we can do is trap the area and evacuate. Do not lose hope though. We have made progress with another way. There's a third human faction that has provided aid and information in exchange for Stone-Blood."

"A sacred product of our lives and souls sold for a pittance I assume." The bearer replied with narrow eyes and a flat tone of dull rage.

The speaker gave an ambivalent gesture. "We trade spent lives for those still living. We are also exploring using their people to produce an equivalent. It will not be a sacred blood, but it will be close enough for their purposes."

That got a dismissive sound. "I care not for how you grind the things that killed my apprentice. I simply wish them dead. Dealing with this third faction will not do it."

"It will. As a gesture of good will, they diverted the fleet faction and granted us a view of their treasures." The speaker gestured to a map of the planet. "We can evacuate our critical people while that mech faction tries to crack our fortification alone. You are invited."

"No." The bearer said with intense exhaustion in his voice. "I will stay and be sure that they bleed. I assume you will be grinding the non-essentials?"

"We always need more Stone-blood. Even more so now. This third faction has something they call a Scroll of Earth. Those that have viewed it have reported significant and rapid advancement. You know what that means and what it requires. We must all make sacrifices." The speaker replied with little emotion.

"I think you are enamored by a clear sky and forgetting that the sun burns." The one who'd recorded the message shot back before sighing. "Leave. Me and several other masters are crafting a final weapon to attack those that come here. Let them mine the marrow of our bones. The planet will scream and kill them as they do so."

"If that is your wish. I cannot dispute one of your standing." The one who spoke said as he turned away.

For a long moment the bearer was silent. Then they sighed and looked down at the crystal. "Why am I recording this? It's pointless now."

A third faction capable of redirecting the CFA? Bolt was quite sure that there wasn't one of those. At least none he'd been informed of. The aliens had been very convinced though. This master hadn't even disputed the speaker.

There were too many disturbing implications in that Slip. Once the designer was sure no more value could be extracted from it, he destroyed it with a grinder and then destroyed the pieces too. He could let no hints it of escape.

 

[lost star]

They'd allotted several days to the breakdown of the city. The assumption was that the automated reinforcements would trickle in while this was happening and that was considered the safest amount of time they could spare. Bolt was fairly done with looting after the first day really. He'd found enough for himself. He could spend years looking through all the Jade Slips they'd found. They'd been everywhere. Everyone else was fairly happy as well. Projected profit was enough to be satisfying and then some. This would be a score for the clan and serve as a serious rallying point, provided they got home with it all. The weren't quite out of the mines yet, so to speak.

Right now he was processing the simplest information he'd gotten and was attempting to turn it into something actionable. Basically making baby's first spiritual construct outside of a mech. This would be done with just human knowledge and tools. If it worked he was onto something. It would also mean that he had a lot of work ahead of him. His fit of inspiration with Morning Star had made the mech a bit hard to replicate and service. He would have to remodel the thing multiple times to get it properly aligned with his standards. Fixing it right now required specifically his dedicated time and effort.

"I thought you'd be looting still." Lilly commented as she let herself into the back of the truck. A burst of cold air followed her and Bolt shivered slightly.

"Got some information that can help me refine that new toy I was speaking of." Bolt replied as he gestured to the series of Slips on the table in front of him. "Basically making things to prove a few theories. Think once I refine it I can make a how-to manual maybe." He held up the set of glasses he was making to the light.

"Can't say I mind that. Least I don't have to worry about you killing yourself out there." The girl said as she sat next to him.

Bolt looked at her in mild confusion before he sighed in frustration. "Someone being an idiot?"

"We're going ta get more casualties from looting the city than the entire trip." Lilly confirmed with a sigh of her own. She pulled off her mask with a small grunt and relaxed into her husband's shoulder. "What's with the glasses?"

"Needed something related to sight that was easy to make physically. Tied a small psionic or spiritual construct to it, whichever terminology you like." The official word was psionic. The aliens called it spiritual. Bolt didn't much care. He handed them to Lilly. "Put em on and look around. Resolution should be better and more durable than that camera I kit-bashed together." (Seriously, one good jerk and those things had snapped apart!)

The young woman grabbed them and did as instructed. She then immediately turned to look at Bolt and paused. Her head tilted this way and that way and then she got to her feet and stepped back before circling him as best she could with him sitting down against the wall.

"Huh." She said before taking them off. "You look like you have a spikey snake eating it's tail in your head." She informed her husband.

"That'd be what your brain is interpreting." Bolt replied before the description really registered. "I have no idea why I'd look like that. Most people should just sorta be an outline I think."

Humans didn't really have any sort of spiritual power according to the references he'd found in the alien's literature. They could theoretically develop it. Apparently some even had potential. They had sparks versus the alien's bonfire. That Lilly had seen something meant that he had something akin to the alien's potentials.

Bolt considered that and deliberately didn't follow the path of thinking there. Instead he took the glasses back and looked them over. Decent first attempt. It did what he wanted in as simple a way as possible. What next? He put his creation on and looked at Lilly. She had a nice red streak of power flowing through her. Not what she'd described his was, but still interesting.

"What else should I do?" Bolt wondered out loud as took off the glasses and set them down. "I need some more practice before I make a mental computer."

"A mental computer, really?" Lilly teased as she retook her seat. "You don't have one of those already?"

"I do have a lot of things I need ta memorize and calculate that I can't just do in my head." Just being able to recall a manual's details on the fly alone would be helpful.

"And how would you attach it. Like more glasses?" The young woman gestured to the glasses.

"I would probably anchor it to the skull or something else. Not for awhile though. I need a lot more testing and proficiency before I even want to try. Also need to up my endurance. I strained myself with your mech. That was what the migraines were according to their primers." Bolt explained before he rooted through his materials.

A few minutes with some metal and a small refinery and he had a knife. It was a standard combat and utility knife. Nothing particularly fancy. Pretty sharp and well made for a knife, but still just a knife. Objects like this were so primitive that they weren't even considered weapons by most people.

Honing it with spiritual power was a surprisingly intensive process. The glasses had been far easier. They'd just needed some parts so to speak. They were light, barebones, and consumed very little power. Adding spirit to the knife was harder. He had to layer the spiritual power he'd had stored over the physical parts and then very carefully align them. None of this was visible either, which made it even more difficult. Not impossible though. Also Bolt wasn't trying anything fancy, so it only took a few minutes.

"Mind focusing on cutting and trying to cut this metal rod?" Bolt asked his wife when he had something somewhat viable.

Lilly raised an eyebrow but took the knife and then scrunched up her face as she pressed it to the metal rod he'd set on his table. They were both made of the same material, so the knife shouldn't do anything if physics was the absolute rule here. Instead the knife cut slowly, then faster once Lilly got the idea of what it was doing.

"Huh." The girl said once the knife went through the bar and held it up. "Mind if I keep this?"

"Feel free. Be a decent surprise defense tool." Bolt responded as he examined the rod that had been cut. So far as he could tell, the rod had just been cut as if the blade had been far sharper than normal. Interesting.

Also a bit dangerous. No one would care that the young woman was carrying the thing. Low tech knives like that were more fashion statements than threats in most circles. Higher tech knives had visible tells that made them dangerous. Bolt had broken a common thought with that creation.

It had been very expensive in terms of spiritual resources though. He hadn't put a dent in how much he had stored, but it was not something he wanted to replicate many times over. Those resources were non-renewable at present time. He was definitely getting somewhere though! Unfortunately this only brought up more questions. All his mechs had various degrees of spiritual construction in them just by almost accident. He just understood the process that more.

This was doubly interesting because the only mech he'd personally made was Morning Star. The others had been made by his family. How had the blueprints translated into the spiritual presence something like Cerberus had? Could he push that? How?

"I have so many questions." Bolt muttered to himself.

"Of course you do." Lilly said back while playing with her new knife. "If you didn't I'd be worried. Mine's rather simple. Does this need special maintenance?" She held the tool up.

"No it shouldn't..." The designer trailed off and picked up the glasses to look at the knife better. His senses were telling him that something was very slightly different. "Focus on it a bit as if you were cutting it if you could?"

Lilly did as requested with an amused smile on her face.

"Well I'll be damned. It's going to get stronger the more you use it." Bolt breathed out.

The news seemed to delight Lilly. "Ooooh, fun knife."

"I'm going to need to keep an eye on my mechs now." The designer muttered. "And put in safeguards for their designs. They have something similar to that knife."

"That would explain Dowry." The pilot noted with a nod.

"Shit." Bolt had noticed her increases but he'd not contemplated what would happen when that mech grew.

Worst case scenario. What would it be? Would she be impossible to pilot? Would the mech become alive? If he put life in a war machine, was that even ethical? It'd be like putting children into combat! Even assuming they liked it, mechs were meant to be very disposable. Bolt had no desire to create intelligent life, even less to create disposable intelligent life.

The young man scrambled mentally as he tried to figure out what to do. Then he calmed himself. First evaluate things. Then make solutions.

 

[lost star]

Examining Dowry hadn't been conclusive. It had been informative yes. It had not giving him definitive answers. She was developing. Developing into what he couldn't say. Compared to Morning Star she was a bit higher in spiritual power, but not much. Morning Star was potent. The alignment of her spiritual structure with her design had synched to create a powerful aura and presence that even normal people could feel. The systems installed in her had likely helped significantly. It felt a bit like Bolt had unintentionally stolen some of Travis' methodology and used it for his own purposes. Which... Might have actually happened.

Bolt made a mental note to ask someone he trusted about that later. He sincerely didn't want to hurt anyone unintentionally. He had no idea what he was capable of in this regard. It seemed every day he had more questions.

Turning back to mechs, there was a possibility of consciousness happening. He had no idea how. A mech could be considered a body, with the inbuilt computer the mind, but he wasn't sure if adding more spirit to the construction would do something. He also had no idea if there was a threshold that needed to be hit, or some other factors needed to be addressed. His other mechs also had various degrees of progression spiritually. Some were farther along than others. All of them were pretty low though. This indicated many things. Mechs could have variable spiritual presence. That presence could be grown through a variety of factors. This did make some sense. He could see why this hadn't come up before. Most mechs were probably trashed before they reached the theoretically threshold where they became special. He therefore didn't need an immediate fix. He still needed a fix.

Thankfully he had a solution of sorts already created. The Lust system he'd installed on Morning Star. That particular device already basically interacted with a mech's systems. It was already associated with that mech's spirit. With a few very easy tweaks it would serve as a backup for the mech's spirit and operating system. Then you could preserve the mech's spirit when needed and by simply removing the Jade Slip.

He would have to refine that idea and the tech first though. The tech especially. Right now it was repurposed alien tech for an expert's mech. This was cute and harmless as a one off on a custom system. It was not good for general production. Bolt wanted this technology to be a standard thing like a rifle or a piece of armor. Something that a tech could build with just the general principles and would find useful to install on a mech. Something not alien.

It was admittedly pretty useful to him already. Bolt could use Morning Star's Jade Slip to see some key parts of the mech's operation through Lilly's eyes. It was extremely disorientating, difficult, and more than a little taxing, but it helped him figure out what was good and bad with his mech. With practice and familiarity he could probably get a lot more than just glimpses. He could see a lot of people loving something similar.

Now getting this ready for general production was actually very daunting as a task. That needed clear lines of production, clear instructions of how it needed to be installed in a variety of mech forms, and a thousand other things that he probably wasn't considering. Bolt did have an advantage there though! He had a lot of bored techs to help.

With the looting winding down and the mechs fully repaired, there were a lot of idle hands waiting for work at the moment. Presenting the problem to them all was like throwing a toy into a playpen of bored dogs. They absolutely pounced on it.

Bolt immediately got a lot of feedback and learned a lot of things. One, spiritual blueprints were attached to regular blueprints. If you built off the blueprints or followed the design close enough, the spiritual parts came over. Two, it had to be done by hand. The human factor sort of filled in spiritual parts somehow. Each step away from humans removed reduced the spiritual weight. There was a minimal threshold. Three, the enthusiasm of the tech helped. Focus worked too. If, for instance, he gave them the glasses he'd made the intensity of the spiritual input increased significantly. Seeing what you could do made things far easier! How utterly surprising.

Finally, all of this was rather useless for his desire to mass produce the Lust System. Making spiritual components needed a human factor. Mass production removed enough of the spiritual. Furthermore sprit components needed either special tools or specific training to be made and adjusted outside of blueprints. Bolt did sort of want to make a general how-to in for spiritual matters, but that idea was at the tail end of a long list of needs. He needed to be certain of more than a few things first. (Like being sure he wasn't doing something that'd get the MTA on his ass.)

They finished looting and started planning the way back while Bolt pondered over all of this. He went over the workings of the Jade Slips, how they were made, and the theories the aliens had about them. He reviewed how neural helmets worked on the human side. Then he got into VR systems and how they functioned. He didn't and couldn't do a thorough review of all of this. He checked mostly surface stuff to see if what he was thinking of was possible. It felt like was. He was convinced enough to create a prototype.

He called the solution the Heart System. The entire design was a deliberate step away from the Jade Slips and their mechanics. It used a less efficient white crystals amalgam for base storage for instance. Those materials were more common and easier to manufacture for people. They were also extremely different visually, which was important Bolt felt. The system itself was purely physical. It didn't use any spiritual engineering in its construction at all. As a trade off it required input from the entire mech in the form of thin wires. It used the unique interaction between mechs and their pilots to record their actions and other factors in the crystal in a what was hopefully a readable form. More importantly for him it would pull spiritual energy from the mech and center it on the storage area, the 'heart.'

Bolt specifically designed it to hopefully work with other devices too. The thought was a total novice could pull out the crystal and put it into a reader. The reader would show the mech model, the OS version, and the ID of the pilot. Another reader type could be hooked up to a VR pod, then the person in the VR could review all the data in the heart. No spiritual nonsense needed!

A designer with the proper training wouldn't even need the tools. They'd be able to connect up. The Hearts were technically humanized Jade Slips and could be connected the same way.

Of course this all needed to be tested and properly implemented. Whipping together a concept was far different than properly implementing it. Bolt managed a few rough tests with the mechs on the way back. The core of it seemed promising, but reading it was proving to be a neigh impossible task with his current tools. Putting the raw data into a simulated VR environment wasn't really translating at all and they lacked the pods to test and verify what was actually coming through. Bolt was pretty sure they needed experienced VR techs to get the data interpreted right. He could read the things enough to know they were pulling data that others could access, but that was all raw data. Every human saw things differently. He was lacking ways to to translate.

Frankly there were so many rough edges with his initial tests that Bolt could safely conclude that the idea needed years of work. The only things he could really confirm were that the data and spiritual cores were being stored correctly. Really that was more than enough for him considering how quickly he'd slapped the initial concept together. He had the base of something useful. It could be improved over time. Perhaps once he got some money he could hire a few people to accelerate the process. Until then it was a good concept that fixed a potential issue now and could be used for something more expansive later.

Morning Star and Dowry seemed to appreciate the work he'd done at least. Revamping both their structures and adding the systems to them gave them some solidity in the physical realm bizarrely enough. Bolt would still monitor them, but he'd addressed some worries over everything.

Again, it all needed work. Bolt was absolutely thrilled anyway. This really felt like something useful!

 

[lost star]

Lilly loved her husband. She really did. She loved his passions. She loved the way he worked. She loved the fact that he was always considerate about her needs. She also wanted to strangle him sometimes.

No adding new systems while they were in the middle of a battlefield! It was bad enough that Morning Star was experimental. She could handle that. She was practically built to try new systems. The other pilots weren't!

They were a day out from leaving at this point, and she'd had to put her foot down the day before. No more new systems. Get everything tidied up and get ready for action. They'd likely have combat at home and she did not want her pilots to have unfamiliar tools. Even if those tools were relatively unobtrusive. The Heart system was interesting as an idea, but this was not the time for adjustments!

"Getting blips." One of the Cerberus mechs reported as they approached the exit.

"I can confirm." Another one of them said. "Who can handle a mode switch?"

"On it."

Lilly felt her attention sharpen and her mech twitched in anticipation. The largest surprise on this trip for her forces had been the dog mechs. Everyone expected having sensors would be useful, but the specific settings Bolt had implemented had been a godsend for sentry and patrolling. Part of why sensor mechs were rare was the fact that they required substantial attention and focus. Cerberus didn't have that issue on the special settings.

"Mechs on the horizon." One of the pilots reported after a few seconds.

"Trucks to the rear. Scatter and hide. Standard rally signal. Combat command, you have lead." Cable gave his orders like men were about to die.

Which was very likely. Lilly closed her eyes as she tried to recall the terrain outside the door. It was a cave opening to a hallway. Assuming the mechs were outside outside, they were above them and on the stone. That wasn't meant to break easy, so they'd try to ambush on the valley outside. The order was therefore very easy.

"Venerable Lilly will take point. Berserkers in front, Zombies behind. Zombies, ready your heads." The commander ordered as expected. "Undertakers, initiate jamming once engagement happens. Cerberus and Drowned, your priority will be to clear the upper paths when possible and get up there."

They didn't have many options here. They couldn't just wait out the mechs outside. Assuming they had someone on call they'd be able to supply themselves indefinitely. They also had to assume that their hired rides had information leaks, and anyone with enough resources would be able to tell when and where the pickup was. They needed to clear out the mechs, assuming they were here to fight. (It was near certain, but there were degrees of commitment here.)

Morning Star stepped out of the doorway that separated the surface from the underground. The hallway had remnants of their camp and a few minor fortifications still there. The few supplies they'd left had been plundered. That alone indicated things.

They hadn't really planned for this, but it was still extremely common. Lilly had been on both ends of this. She walked out of the cover of the cave without hesitation. There, one mech stood in her way.

"I know you." Lilly had made it a point to look up other expert mercs once she'd ascended. There were a surprising amount of them. Most of them were thinly veiled national assets. This man was not one of them. "Headhunter Leo."

"Don't know if it makes my job easier or harder to be recognized here." The mech pilot replied calmly.

Leo was a merc who specialized in fighting other experts. He had a small team of about a hundred mechs that aided him by causing distractions and separating the elites from their support. The man wasn't really notorious so much as a known occupational hazard. As one of the few mercs that didn't have an obvious allegiance, he was frequently hired to kill or test experts. He was as mercenary as they came.

Bolt was already rattling off details about his mech in Lilly's ear. The mech was a medium with surprisingly low armor. It's weapon of choice was a large polearm with spikes on both ends and an axe head, a headman's axe. It was not an elegant weapon. The axe-head was lined with resonating exotics, and was quite likely the focus of the mech. There were weapons concealed in the chest. Very low center of gravity and the arms indicated some surprising dexterity.

"So, I'm guessing your here for my head? Yer not gonna find it easy to get if you are." Lilly noted as she flexed her wings and eyed positioning. "Tell ya what. This is kinda common back home. We can handle it like we do there. I'll hand ya a map of what we looted and some shiny things and we can part ways without trouble."

"Not in the cards unfortunately." The mech shifted its grip on the axe into a more threatening angle. "But I notice that mech looks different than your standard one. Pretty thing, but incomplete. I can let you switch if your other is still there. You deserve that much before we fight." His tone was conversational. "Experts honor you'll get time."

"I'm fine with this one." Lilly shifted slight and started slowly upping her generator. "We both know Dowry would be a bad matchup against you."

"That is true. Felt the need to make my offer. You got a shit hand here." Leo gave the impression of shrugging, even if it was impossible to see in his mech. "Looking at the situation this would be best settled by a duel. You agree?"

"Be glad to once yer guys up top stop angling to drop rocks on my head." Lilly replied and then jumped while flaring her boosters.

Up in the air and above the trench she could see that the man had brought his full force there. Most of the mechs were already backing away as she rose to the air and then slammed down to the ground in a better positioning. Whatever Headhunter had wanted to do here was rather irrelevant in the end. She could see him following her now, so the duel was on without any need for verbal confirmation. They both understood the reasoning for this. Her people were in a very narrow and fortified area. Prying them out was going to be costly without Headhunter. He could not do that while she was up. She therefore needed to be eliminated first. Dueling it out like this reduced the theoretical damage to both sides.

This did not mean that they were being friendly or anything. Just that they both knew this was the option with the least chance of monetary loss for both of them. Merc companies frequently lived and died by their repair bills. Leo in particular likely had to be extremely careful.

Combat was going to be tricky. She had a mix of advantages and disadvantages. Headhunter's configuration and prep had likely been done for Dowry, so she had the advantage there. That advantage was balanced out by the fact that as Morning Star was not complete. She lacked resonant materials, and that was very frequently a deciding factor for fights. She was actually probably at a larger disadvantage really.

Lilly fired off the daggers in one gauntlet and watched as her opponent almost contemptuously dodged and deflected them. That another reason was why she was not favored here. At normal power her weapons weren't dangerous. She'd need more enemies to pull from before her daggers moved fast enough to be a real threat.

She was not out of luck though. She danced a few steps this way and that way, carefully throwing more daggers here and there, testing her opponent's reflexes. They were superb as expected.

"Your first time fighting really an expert I see." Leo noted calmly. "Pity."

Before the woman could wonder about that statement he moved. Lilly reacted instantly and even that still was barely enough. Somehow the mech had crossed the distance between them between eyeblinks. The large axe it was wielding just barely missed bisecting her as he swung. Her mech's superb dodging skills were the only thing that saved her.

He was reading her just like she was reading him. Lilly had fought people as good as her before. She'd never really fought an expert before. She was realizing what that meant now.

Lilly naturally tried to retaliate, but again he just shifted avoid the strike. The daggers scraped off his armor instead of catching and he went for another swing. This one was wider. Irritated, the young woman decided now was the time to reveal a card. She slapped the incoming weapon with a wing.

The resulting explosion was relatively small. It caused the weapon to jerk off course and sent a surge of momentum through her own mech. She rode that as she pulled her daggers back. Several scraped against her opponent's armor again as he dodged with barely any thought. This time it caused a bit of damage.

Expert battles were frequently whomever could wear down their opponent's willpower and resonance shield. Lilly only knew the theory. Good strikes could pierce it, but the most common tactic was to grind willpower against willpower while trading blows. Implementing it was something she was learning on the fly.

"Hmm." The chest of her opponent's mech opened up and flames erupted from it.

Lilly didn't bother to dodge that blow. With the expert's power backing the flames they were a threat, but chest weapons had less power than most. They traded concealed strength for surprise and ease of targeting. Her mech's armor drank up the heat as designed, and she endured the slight damage for her next move. The next series of daggers went through the fire and gouged out armor chunks as the expert's chest snapped shut.

"That is an impressive set of defenses." Leo commented with some amusement at the lack of effect his weapon had. "Your husband made it while you were in there? If so he has my genuine compliments. I can see why people want him dead."

"You always this chatty?" Lilly recalled her daggers and threw them again, to little effect again.

"Not always. Your skills are very impressive for one so new to being an expert. You are not however a threat." The headhunter shifted the grip on his axe again and he sighed. "But forgive me, I'm being disrespectful. Let's just end this now. The whispers are starting to grate and I don't play while on business."

Lilly could relate to that statement even as she braced herself. This time she was ready for the mech's speed. She wasn't ready for how the axe glowed with blue and created a second axe in a different angle. Her reflexes had the wing intercepting the strike, but that was far from enough. The wing exploded and the phantom weapon disappeared. Thankfully the wing managed to do its job even in death. She was able to avoid a killing blow and just lost a good portion of her upper torso's armor.

This was admittedly still not good. The Envy system that was the armor didn't protect exposed internals. Leo didn't even need to hit her with the axe again. He just opened up his chest again and began to fire the flamethrower.

Lilly in turn activated Greed at maximum. She couldn't hold back anymore. Little sparks of electricity ran up and down her mech as it drew in power from everything it could. This wasn't much. Most of the enemy mechs had gotten far enough that they weren't in rage. She still threw every bit of power her systems could gather into Wrath and shot all the daggers she had into the opening provided. Even as the flames bathed her systems, the daggers lodged themselves into her opponent's chest. The armor snapped shut too late and something ground horribly inside it as bits of metal lodged it shut.

That left her without daggers though, and her opponent realized that the same time she did. Internally she cursed. That had been a rookie mistake! The damage to his internals were tremendous but he still had his axe and the thing still had the resonance material. Furthermore he was still in very close range and her mech was already reporting serious internal errors from the exposed parts being cooked.

Lilly had to sacrifice another wing to get clear. There was no other option for survival. Riding the explosion from the sacrificed limb bought her a few seconds to drain more and more time to get something improvised.

"I am quite surprised." Headhunter admitted with an unidentifiable emotion in his voice as he hefted his axe. "I will not be ground down though." The axe flared blue and willpower flared. "Ready yourself."

Half her wings were gone. She had no real offense anymore. Greed would result in a victory, assuming she could last the time it'd take. That was very far from a guarantee. The range and speed of that axe were both dangerous enough that Lilly judged she had maybe a minute or less before she was killed. The thought didn't shake her. Her willpower pressed against his in an invisible declaration of intent and they both began to move.

Morning Star pulled her tattered wings close and began to dodge like her life depended on it, which it did. She needed more daggers. Another flaw in the design, though an unexpected one. It wasn't uncommon to run out of bullets and such normally. The daggers were meant to be disposable, but she was too used to throwing everything in there at once. Bolt had foreseen the need to resupply though. Her mech wrapped a hand around one of her gauntlets as she dodged. The armored weapons were meant to be able to take hits if they needed to. She hadn't had cause to use them here. The axe had too much heft. Such was the leverage and the weight of it that even deflected blows would be ruinous. Since she couldn't block it, that meant some of the metal could be repurposed.

After a few dodges she realized that Greed and the internal damage had hurt Leo's mech more than she'd thought. He only started pressing her thirty seconds into dodging. By one minute she'd only lost a bit more armor. She could see her paths of escape being closed off though and knew she was being led to her doom. Her mech had superb damage mitigation. That did not mean she was immune to it. One more good hit would probably be the last of it. She could hear things grinding as well. That fire had not been kind.

That was why she didn't wait. The second a dagger was properly formed it flew through the air. It scored her her first real hit. The mech staggered as it pierced an eye and then she ripped it out, switching the current quickly to ready her weapons for another blow. Yet in her haste she neglected to account for her fighting an expert again. The damage didn't even make him flinch. He rammed the butt of the axe into her mech's torso without a care for what had been inflicted in him. The spiked end blew past her chest armor and broke the generator.

Lilly pulled on the Greed system with all her might in reply. Willpower flared and drained as she fed it into her mech desperately. Sloth activated as best it could to compensate for the loss of energy. She had the power she was leaching and what remained in the energy cells. The latter was for short burst energy. A hand grabbed at the closest part of the enemy she could. The chest, already damaged. She activated the shaping system in the palm as the gauntlets gripped. It forced the chest to give slightly and her mechs hand pulled down.

As Leo violently pulled his axe out of her torso chunks from his chest fell off from her own desperate attack. Wounded, barely operational, Lilly grinned just a bit. She activated the pull on her gauntlets, and some of the daggers still lodged in his chest were finally able to work themselves free, bringing themself free in a shower of sparks. She then slammed all of them into the mech's legs with the last of the energy in her mech. Only a few of them hit, but that was more than enough to slow it.

"Well then. That evens it out I think?" Lilly noted as her mech fell to its knees, barely functional now that most of its power supply was gone. "Yer kinda slowed now. Care ta call it here?"

"And why would I do that?" Leo asked as he mech raised its axe with a jerk that indicated serious internal damage.

"Because, I still have Dowry." The expert woman replied as she turned off the friend or foe recognition.

Below her, all the mechs her people had brought with her started to spark as Greed pulled on their energy sources. Power surged into Morning Star and it got to its feet with stolen power and pure will. The torso might have been ripped apart, but it could still move, and move faster than Leo.

Leo slammed his weapon down in a strike that would have bisected her and her mech danced away as if it had not just lost every part that should give it life. The movements were still very smooth even if its arms were limp. Upper and mid torso damage typically broke the arm movements too. Lilly could read the damage just as well as her opponent could. Her legs still worked. His were damaged.

For a moment the assassin stared at her. Lilly could see him calculating even if she couldn't actually see him physically. The way his willpower flexed. He was still about half if she had to judge. She was holding on by her fingers. She would lose if he caught her. If she got away and got into Dowry he was done though. Dowry would eat him. He shifted and his willpower loomed over her as he slowly made his decision.

Like a light switch the willpower disappeared as he stood down. Leo too a step away and the haft of his axe hit the ground. "Very well. Pay for the contract breach and we will call it done." He offered and then added an unexpected demand. "Your husband owes me a mech."

"Umm." Lilly honestly had no idea how to answer that.

"He owes me a custom design. You have impressed me. I want one." The expert clarified.

"Acceptable." Bolt answered over the radio with surprising calm. "Send me your specifications and I'll send you a design. Building it and adding exotics is all your purview. This will take a few months."

"Bartered and done. Consider the contract canceled and yourselves free from me pursuing you further." The axeman stepped away without another word.

Lilly waited until he was out of sight before she carefully dropped down to her allies and only then allowed Morning Star to stop running. She found herself shaking once it was all over. That had been rather intense. And extremely close. Despite her words she had not been sure if she could have gotten free cleanly. It would have been very close, and likely would have resulted in the death of a lot of her people.

 

[lost star]

When Lilly and Bolt had gone away they'd set several precautions behind. Most of them had been relatively simple. Additional security, patrol routes, command responsibilities, and so on. The more complicated stuff had been just in cases. What they should do in the case of an attack was the most prominent one. It had been considered mostly inevitable.

Thus when a ship moved nearby in orbit and started dropping mechs, no one was surprised. They simply activated the shield and readied their forces. There weren't that many sadly. Despite the recruitment drive, it took time to build up forces. The planet's population was rather sparse after all. It was immediately apparent that their forces were heavily outnumbered, which wasn't surprising. All they had was young pilots and a few older veterans.

Mercenary companies varied in size. The smallest ones were usually considered local planetary forces and numbered from fifty to one hundred. The largest ones required specific local conditions, and were usually heavily backed by either spaceborn clans or nations. In less organized areas they were simply another form of government, and usually not a kind one. Those typically had thousands of mechs.

These raiders were one of the medium sized ones. A little bit more than five hundred mechs of all stripes, with their own personal fleet. About half of them were frontline mech and pilots. This was not uncommon. Low potentials usually had no future as mech pilots. Joining up with a merch company and getting slapped into a frontline mech was a way of making a living and getting something like glory.

Numbers wise, this meant the Wrench Rats were outnumbered roughly five to one. Since this was assaulting a fortified position, it meant that the numbers mattered less, but that sort of disparity was still insurmountable without significant advantages. They immediately implemented their defensive plans.

First the fog generators around the mountain were set to full blast. Custom made and freshly topped off, they'd last functionally indefinitely. The fog would not completely disrupt enemy sensors. Modern mechs were relatively immune to most standard weather conditions. It would still cause sensory ghosts and set the atmosphere for the other mechs. Forcing pilots to rely on sensors very typically threw them off.

Seeing this, the mercs first attempted to fly in with their fliers and support aircraft. The thought was to bypass the mist entirely and use the mountaintops as a staging ground. This turned out to be an incredibly poor idea.

The defenders had more than a few flaws. Their pilots weren't that good without Lilly, all of their mechs were made by Bolt, and they lacked numbers. None of that mattered in this particular scenario. Picking targets out of a sky was something that even a novice could do. Without ground support, the Shining Shrine Maidens had the luxury of taking their time targeting enemies. Since they were at their core laser mechs, they really had no trouble frying all the incoming flyers. Mech after mech dropped out of the sky until there was nothing left.

This was just a small blow against the mercenary company though. Their air assets were more a novelty than a dedicated focus. Called the Hanged Dukes, their specialty lay mostly in their ground forces. They were a very blunt hammer that was typically hired to smash wide or fortified areas. They specifically recruited a significant amount of chaff to allow them to take losses and press forward.

So it was fairly obvious what the next step was. The frontline mechs were sent in. They came in batches and walked through the mist with obvious reluctance. These things had horrible sensors and even less in the way of defenses so it was safe to say they'd die in droves.

The Wrench Rats sicced their youngest pilots on them in return. The green recruits had the energy and needed the experience. This had mixed results. The best thing one could say about the battle was that very few of them died. Personal training from Lilly was no substitute for experience in the field. It took years to be considered good as a pilot. Some of these young pilots had only a year of training, if that.

It has to be said that this had not been done out of cruelty on the defenders side. All of the Wrench Rat pilots were in good mechs. Zombie and Cerberus might not have been high quality modern mechs, but they were a significant step up from frontline mechs. Sending them out to fight the attackers was both the kindest way of bloodying them they had and their best way of answering the enemy's tactics. Not that those pilots really knew that. They were high on fever and low on sense.

One young pilot was learning this firsthand. His nickname was Pup. His real name was First Son. He was the first son of a group of rats called Farmer Rats. They'd been one of the first big groups to move to the mountain and served as one of the cornerstones of food production. He'd been found to have potential and joined up rather than much about in the internal greenhouses.

Pup was green. Greener than green really. His first time piloting had been when he'd joined up, and he'd promptly been put into Cerberus due to their lack of anything resembling training mechs. He actually had decent potential, but it again took years to get really good. The dog mech had enough compensation in the design that he could pilot it without stumbling and hurting himself or allies.

Not that he wasn't giving the latter a good try. "Firing again!" The pilot called out in his comms as he let loose another volley of fire missiles. (They'd decided to give the newbies simple napalm missiles rather than the more expensive types, for rather obvious reasons.)

The missiles arched into the mist and Pup growled as they missed. He shifted back a few steps and then yelped in alarm as the frontline mechs he'd targeted started to come into actual view. Several fired machine guns at him and turned away in a mild panic. He jumped through the air several times what he felt like a proper evasive pattern and then turned around again. Something gave an alert, but he couldn't tell what.

"Command, what should I do?! There's a lot of mechs here!" Pup asked before firing yet again. Most of the missiles splashed harmlessly against the ground. One or two might have hit something.

"Damnit Pup, clear command comms!" A Zombie mech trundled into view. The pursuing frontlines shot into his forward facing arm and the mech jerked with each strike. "Fall back to the mountain."

"But we have to defend our home!" The pilot protested as he switched channels randomly.

"Private channel. You're on the open one now. Take a breath and fire." The zombie shifted again to keep his armored side to the mechs trying to flank him. "They can barely see you. You have good armor and it's still intact. Breath, focus, fire."

Pup huffed and puffed, but then managed to fire off a few more shots. These missiles arched through the air and actually hit, not that he could see it visually. The sensors said it did, so it did!

"Good, better. Now we're doing something a controlled fallback." The veteran pilot walked him through it. "You know how to play dead?"

"Is that a dog joke? Now!?" The Cerberus pilot asked incredulously.

"Hah! No. Can't say we're the best at anything, but I can say we know how ta look defeated. Limp a bit and run when they come into view. If you get really hit fall over and wait." The zombie said as they began to move back. "If they come up blast em. Otherwise wait till they leave. We need ta sell that we're being pressed."

Pup wasn't sure what he meant by limp a bit, but he gave it a good try as they retreated. He still fired when he spotted something. His companion didn't say anything about it. He actually encouraged it a few times and walked him through the process each time. They made steady progress through the mud and mist. At least he assumed so. Pup couldn't really tell where they were going even with the automated map.

"I hate this." Pup didn't whine and he'd hurt anyone that would say otherwise. "This is my home. I like it here. I hate them!"

"Can't say I feel the same. Lost more homes than I could count. Fights like this are more home than anything else." The pilot in the Zombie said as he limped along, looking like he was on his last legs. "That said, this ain't a fight where we're dead men walking. Just need em ta commit. You know how that goes?"

"No." Pup responded.

By this point they were pretty close to the mountain. Pup could see a few others walking in. Most of the zombies looked horribly beat up. The others were damaged but not ruined. The makeup was mostly Cerberus and Zombies though, none of the Berserkers and very few Drowned Men.

"Well I can say it now that we're back. See how the Zombies look? Bit funny, but our wonderkid made them great for this sorta thing. They always look beat up, so if ya parade them around in plain sight the enemy thinks they got us on the ropes. We want their big forces in nice and close." The veteran said.

Pup thought he got it. "For the Maidens to kill them then?" He asked.

"Somewhat. They'll certainly put in work. But the big thing is that." The zombie gestured to the air as they emerged from the mist.

Above them small meteors started to become apparent in the distance. Shuttles dropping in from orbit. Pup stared at them in confusion.

"Are they getting reinforcements?" He asked with growing alarm.

"Nah. See, mercs are mercs. They want money. If people are gonna attack us with em, why wouldn't we hire some ta attack back?" The veteran pilot asked with a bark of dark laughter. "Ya get it now Pup?"

A fierce sort of fire burned in the young pilot then. He stared at the meteors and then at the mist. "I get it. We're going to let the mechs back stab em."

"Oh yeah. Might be Rats, but we know Rat traps, hah!"

This wasn't the end of the siege. Or the last sortie that Pup would deploy in. Experienced Mercs didn't go down or let go of their targets if there was a potential for profit. There ended up being more than a few battles before they finally withdrew, sans more than a few mechs. The Wrench Rats actually ended up making a very minor profit due to the salvage and cost savings of simply offering repairs as part of the contracts.

By the time Lilly and Bolt finished, the skies were clear, their wallets were slightly more full, and they'd proved that even without her they could defend themselves. This alone meant a lot. When combined with her messages of success, it meant everything.


----
End Arc 2

Spoiler

The following are ratings if the system were to rate the designs. These are relative to others in the same tech level to make it easier on me.



Variant name: Cerberus
Base model: Cerberus

Weight Classification: Medium
Recommended Role: Rifleman / Sentry / Hunter
Armor: B-
Carrying Capacity: B
Aesthetics: B
Endurance: C
Energy Efficiency: B
Flexibility: B
Firepower: B (Variable based on loadout.)
Integrity: B
Mobility: C
Spotting: A
X-Factor: C+

Overall Evaluation: A surprisingly flexible sensory mech. The X-Factor aligned with the configuration makes it extremely capable of spotting and honing in on enemies. The ability to shift the missile loadout also allows it to adjust to most circumstances.

The form factor is both a boon and hinderance. The X-factor combined with the design makes the sensory capabilities far easier to use than other sensor mechs, but it also reduces the number of pilots capable of handling the mech. This makes it less commercially viable than a humanoid model with the same capabilities would have.

Variant name: Scavenging Ghoul
Base model: Ghoul

Weight Classification: Light
Recommended Role: Deep Range Skirmisher
Armor: C
Carrying Capacity: C
Aesthetics: A
Endurance: A+
Energy Efficiency: B
Flexibility: D
Firepower: C
Integrity: B+
Mobility: B+
Spotting: B+
X-Factor: B

Overall Evaluation: A niche and deadly skirmisher designed to hide in the back lines of enemy forces and feed off their supply lines. The use of nanomachines and other techniques allows it to operate for an indefinite amount of time without support or reinforcements. This has increased the cost significantly, which has reduced the commercial success. The nanomachine core used to give the mech its long-lived operational time is expensive, even using a reduced cost down variation.

The X-Factor combined with the design will result in unpredictable effects. Assuming it follows the path of Dowry, these mechs have the potential to evolve themselves to better suit their pilots and circumstances. This is unlikely as it would require the mech to age or the pilot to ascend. If the mechs are used as intended, they will have on average the lifespan of a single year. Fighting behind enemy lines is extremely risky and harsh.

As an additional effect, the x-factor combined with the appearance provoke a terrorizing effect when the mech is in action. This has intense effects on enemy morale when appropriately used.

Variant name: Dowry V2
Base model: Ghoul

Weight Classification: Light
Recommended Role: Expert Mech, Deep Range Skirmisher
Armor: C
Carrying Capacity: C
Aesthetics: A
Endurance: A+
Energy Efficiency: B
Flexibility: D
Firepower: C-
Integrity: A
Mobility: A
Spotting: B
X-Factor: B+

Overall Evaluation: An expert skirmisher with a focus on long operational time. The appearance and movement create an extreme terrorizing effect upon those with lesser will. This variant is capable of refueling, refining, and growing from fallen enemies. Felling and eating expert enemies will enhance this effect. Non-experts will provide negligible improvement gains.

The resonance effect installed upon this mech allows it to 'digest' any consumed mechs near instantly. It will then use that material to repair and upgrade itself within seconds. The X-factor reinforces this effect and will give the mech the ability to upgrade itself to second rate over time, provided the proper materials are harvested.


Variant name: Morning Star V1
Base model: Morning Star

Weight Classification: Medium
Recommended Role: Expert Mech, Striker
Armor: A-
Carrying Capacity: C
Aesthetics: A+
Endurance: B (A+ in crowds)
Energy Efficiency: A-
Flexibility: B-
Firepower: C (B- in crowds)
Integrity: A-
Mobility: C
Spotting: D
X-Factor: A-

Overall Evaluation: A Striker only hindered by it's relatively weak primary weapon. Based off a sinful angel, this mech excels in wide area combat. As a defensive mech it has few matches. It is also incomplete and lacks typical resonance materials. Once that is added, presumably to the primary weapon, it will be unmatched by comparable experts when around multiple mechs.

The aura, or 'glow' is tied to the installed Greed system. When active it draws in the power from all electrical sources designated as enemies in a wide area. When not active the mech merely demands admiration and pampering, as befits a sinful angel.

 

[lost star]

FTL communicators were expensive, expensive things depending on what you wanted. They were also rather necessary in this day and age. Getting two portable military grade relays had cost a significant portion of their budget for the expedition. It had also been rather necessary. Fortunately they were reusable, and one of the few technologies that was available to everyone who was willing to pay. Both the CFA and the MTA had made it possible for people talk to anyone in the galaxy if they had the appropriate, and widely proliferated technology. They were also relatively idiot proof. You just had to set one down and press a button, then your comms would connect. (More expensive comms had FTL communication inbuilt and could forgo this entire mess.)

Naturally Bolt and his people couldn't get this done without complications. What should have happened was that once they signaled their ride, they would have been picked up in a day or so. They'd made arrangements with one of the shipper spaceborne clans and they'd been on standby in the area.

What instead happened was Bolt's comm dinged a few minutes after the FTL transmitter. The young man stared at it with dread and then picked it up. A few automated messages had already been exchanged. Most of them were relieving and normal. His family had endured the predicted attack. He had a few sales updates. A few updates from his friends on far off planets. Standard stuff that happened when your comm was off for awhile. He was especially relieved about the update on his family.

One message was less than welcome.

'You will need to report to the MTA headquarters as soon as possible.' The note was unsigned. It didn't need to be. 'An automated ship will be transporting you to an MTA representative who is invested in your success. Have this comm recycled and remove all your equipment before boarding. There are several things that need to be sanitized and adjusted to assure your safety. The study materials on the shuttle will cover what you need to know in the immediate future. Expect a package once you reach the headquarters. Do not speak of me until you get it.'

Bolt swallowed. The message deleted itself after he read it. Something was up again. He sent Lilly a message and tightened his cold weather gear around himself before removing everything he could and requesting that his comm be recycled. Getting out into the cold, he looked up into the sky and was unsurprised to see a very prominent and advanced ship dropping down from space.

"I hate this." Lilly murmured through the cold weather masks as she gave him a hug. "We just got a big win and now it's almost like we're being punished."

"Wish I could assure you more than what the message said." Bolt replied as he returned the hug and then boarded the ship.

He didn't know much about first rate technology. He could say that this was probably up there. He was a bit afraid to touch anything. He had to force himself to move to the one chair inside the place and take a seat. A screen immediately appeared in front of him.

"What?" He said out loud in sheer confusion as he read it.

Journeyman, What it Means. How to Use Alien Technology. Those were the titles of the articles he had in front of him. Bolt skimmed through them quickly. The first was a briefing on how to introduce himself as a Journeyman, what the expectations were, and more. It was in essence an etiquette manual. Which, well was good for him, but seemed strange that it had been placed right in front of him right now. He was obviously missing something. The second was more obvious. It had the official stances of the MTA on alien technology.

Something was happening in the background, and he needed to toe the official line Bolt concluded after a moment. He had to assume that his hidden master was arranging something and and instruction like this was most efficient way he had of briefing him about things. A review of the information provided indicated that he had to give a general explanation of his philosophy. There were also explicit instructions as to appropriate terminology. These were how-to guide for idiots, which probably would have been insulting in another circumstance. He wasn't stupid to think that here. He was likely being monitored extensively now, and this hidden master of his did not do things for no reason.

The young man kept silent, he read what he could and formulated his response to the question of what his design philosophy was. What was it, simplified and sanitized? He couldn't just call it scavenging. That was getting parts. It was not what he did when he made mechs. He didn't scavenge a new mech.

Consumption was probably the closest single word for what he did. That was not going to work. Bolt could imagine trying to tell someone that was his design philosophy! It be a fantastic icebreaker. 'Oh hello, my name is Bolt and my specialty is consumption, and why are you running away from me?'

As silly as it was, this was actually pretty important. According to the documentation, this was essentially both how the MTA categorized you and how other designers figured out if they could work together. If Bolt flubbed this he'd be condemning himself to working alone for the rest of his life, or could make the MTA consider him an issue in some way. As he though more on it, Bolt figured he got one reason for the abrupt summons. He was being shielded in some way. At least that was his hope.

It was best to simplify this. Walk through the steps. What did Bolt do to design a mech? Not the mindset. The mechanics behind it.

He took used parts and repurposed them.

He took concepts and remade them to fit his desires better.

He deliberately sacrificed performance in one area to enhance another.

Could he call it conversion? That wasn't the best description, but it was a good, all encompassing word. Recycling, Conversion, and Unification of Machine Components. There. That felt nice and vaguely descriptive enough to be something he could put on paperwork.

Naturally that wasn't all of his design process. Lilly had seen his 'power' as a snake eating it's tail. In truth after thinking about it, Bolt considered his style endless refinement. He took all he could and used it to make something, then sharpened it and remade it again and again. The Ouroboros. Scavenging, stealing, using whatever he could to get just a bit more. Building upon it all. The dead deserved their respect and he'd do that by refining their work and ideals into something better. He took lessons from ruins and the word that had been done before.

Thankfully it was very acceptable to not speak of everything in your design philosophy. The instructions were very clear that the MTA wanted a nice succinct summary for their records. They might request clarification, but they liked things relatively simple. (There were almost passages with an almost pleading tone to that effect.) Bolt was going to give them just that.

He spent most of the trip working and reworking his explanation in his head as well as adjusting his terminology to better fit what the official MTA stance was. Thankfully he seemed to be speeding along. He had no idea how fast this little thing was, but it probably was up there. An MTA automated shuttle like this had to have some benefit aside from the automation that made it useful. Bolt hoped he'd read the situation well enough. He also rather wished he been able to take a change of clothing and a suitcase, because the cold weather gear was not meant for indoor temperatures. He'd stripped down to his underclothing to keep from dying from the heat after the first day had passed.

That turned out to be a minor mistake, because he'd had no warning when he was teleported.

"Hello and wel-" The woman's voice cut off as she saw him.

Bolt stared at her and sighed before covering his face. "Of course." He muttered.

"Is there a reason you're almost naked?" The woman who teleported him asked with a head tilt.

The person in front of him was someone who was best described as pink. Pink clothing, pink hair, and pink eyes. She also had a rather voluptuous figure, unnaturally so. An artificial look that would not have been out of place on a sex worker if one wanted to be insulting about it. Bolt didn't. At the higher levels of technology a person's appearance was a choice. This woman had very likely chosen to look this way.

"I was on a very cold planet before I boarded and didn't bring a change of clothes." The young man said calmly as he struggled not to show any embarrassment. "You wouldn't happen to have something else would you? I could get back into that, but I'd die of the heat in a few minutes." He gestured to the neatly folded and thick pile of clothing next to him.

The words seemed to delight the woman. "Oh, easy!" She tapped her hands together and a second later a set of clothing was in her hands. "Here you go! It's not fancy, but you'll look good in them!"

Mildly surprised at how easy and painless the was turning out to be, Bolt grabbed the stuff and started to pull it on. "Didn't even notice I landed."

"Yeah, that model is nice, but not really suited for sightseeing or passenger comfort. It's fast. That's it. My personal ship, which you are on, is far better." The woman noted with a chipper grin. "Welcome by the way! You may call me Senior Bubbles. I'll be your personal liaison for now and in the future."

"Liason?" Bolt paused a moment before continuing to dress himself. He couldn't say he liked the style or color of the clothes, but he was not going to complain about it. "Could I get an explanation of that and what this is about? It was all very abrubt."

"Of course! When someone advances to journeyman the MTA likes to offer a point of contact for them! It varies depending on the person, the circumstances, and even their requests!" Bubbles explained and very obviously didn't stop watching Bolt. "In this case you helped me advance, so I put in a request and got it. You're both young and have potential, which helped significantly."

That actually made Bolt stop moving completely. "I'm sorry, but I helped you advance? How?!" He asked incredulously. This was someone with direct MTA backing. The ship alone was worth more than everything he'd built put together and doubled.

"It is not as large a deal as you might think. You get inspiration from the strangest places sometimes. That's why Journeymen are encouraged to travel. I was at the cusp and my automated feeds brought up your engine component. It gave me an idea! My specialty is energy generation and distribution." The senior explained while giving a shrug and twirling her hair. "We can talk more about that later if you like, but our schedule is going to be a bit packed. I need to review a lot of material while we travel to our destination. We're going to the Halcyon Citadel to get you officially registered as a Journeyman. The trip time will take a week or so and then I can drop you off back home in another week."

"That's it?" Bolt asked with mild confusion.

"Sounds pretty innocent right? Why are we rushing and why am I personally involved then right? There's reasons. You haven't been naughty, but well... You tripped a few alerts somewhere." The words from Bubbles weren't alarming until Bolt realized what they implied. Worst was the fact that the woman's expression hadn't changed from that slightly vapid and amused expression she'd led with. "You probably got the idea from the materials you had in the shuttle. A lot of the details from you and your teams comms were uploaded to our networks and it got someone's attention."

The young man nodded slowly. "So I did something that could piss some people off but not the MTA as a whole?" He reasoned out.

"Got it! Like you're fine. It's just, there's degrees of fine. The MTA is an organization, and it has people who have very specific and strident opinions." Bubbles paused and actually winced slightly as she seemed to realize something and began to rattle off something that felt rather rote. "I am going to specifically say that you have not done anything the MTA will not approve of. I am also going to state that I'm not trying to cover things up, or bribe you, or request a bribe, or anything else that would be considered inappropriate." She rolled her eyes and stared at the ceiling as she continued. "So if ANYONE looks at the official record they'll know that. I am offering someone with potential some expedited and discounted services to encourage a good relationship with the MTA as a whole.

It said something about the entire mess that he wanted this over and done with more than he wanted further clarification. Bubbles wasn't being threatening, but Bolt knew that things had gotten complicated. He almost wished the Hidden Master had kept being blunt instead of this.

"So I'm going to assume that we're officially monitored." The young man noted dryly after a beat.

"Down to our genetic profile." Bubbles confirmed with a slightly tired look. "You get used to it. The info isn't pulled unless someone with the appropriate authorization asks for it. The MTA doesn't usually have new journeymen escorted like this. Someone pulled some strings, and that's going to be extremely obvious. It's also doesn't matter. Everything is within MTA rules. You legitimately just found something that improves your designs and my presence simply prevents random accusations. Very technically you're even getting paid for the inconvenience by expediting this trip and because I'll be revising Morning Star with you on the way back."

For a moment Bolt wondered if should object. Then he realized that she could address the resonant issue and that this was an MTA trained senior offering. "I'm assuming we're improving it?"

"Bolt, honey, darling, that mech might be Third Rate, but she's absolutely gorgeous. I want to get my hands all over her." The MTA designer replied in such a salacious tone that the young man gave a startled flinch. "Hah! If that wasn't clear yes we are. You'll be getting a free MTA consultation and work done to get her to the peak within your means. I'm pretty sure our specialties are very compatible, so this is actually a benefit for me too." The woman paused and winced again. "And I'm going to go ahead and give you access to our communications area right now so that we can prevent any misunderstandings. Please feel free to talk with your wife and family and explain the situation. I probably should have said that earlier. Their comms will have certain details blanked out and they'll get an official briefing on what to say. You'll get it too. Think of this more as us preventing trouble rather than there being trouble."

The designer had to admit he was feeling more than a little exhausted by this point.

 

[lost star]

The official line that Bolt had to parrot was that it was all psionics. Psionics were also explicitly a human only phenomenon. The strange shit that had happened on the planet was the result of bizarre alien powers. That was about the sum total of what would get Bolt in trouble with the MTA. Everything else he'd done was acceptable, even applauded. Kicking and aliens when they were down and stealing their stuff was encouraged by the powers that be. He and his family were fine so long as they specifically kept to that line. At least officially.

Unofficially things were more complicated. By virtue of his decisions Bolt had already aligned himself with and against several internal factions. Some of them were greatly interested in his work with the aliens. Others would prefer it be suppressed. Was just encouraged to keep their head down for a few days while things were smoothed over and Bolt was officially registered with the MTA and proved that he was able to align with their interests.

"You don't need to worry about it much." Bubbles reassured him during one of their meetings on the way to their destination. "You're too small for it to be an issue and we have enough cover that barring something obviously bad no one can even do anything."

"Define obvious." Bolt replied.

"Something like preaching the supremacy of alien thoughts. Explicitly going against MTA doctrine, or attacking our assets." The senior said with a wave of a hand and an amused look. "Considering your specialty, you're more likely going to root through graves and recording the history of their defeat rather than anything else. That's approved of by the way. Just phrase anything you publish in a way that has us kicking the enemy's ass."

While he wouldn't word it like that, he had to agree that was his most likely course of action in the future. Bolt stared at holograms between them as he pondered what was going on. The ship they were in had a wealth of devices, as befit an MTA ship. It put anything else to shame. Custom displays, perfectly comfortable seats, and so on. It wasn't his first time on one, and it was still a bit awe inspiring.

"Speaking of that, is my wording for my specialty correct?" The new journeyman asked once the thought occurred to him.

"It is." Bubbles gave a nod. "All designers have something like that as our official description. It's helpful categorizing things. The MTA will also be interested but not too interested, which is what's best for you. Without serious and public backing you want to thread a sweet spot of valuable but not too valuable."

Specialties were officially divided into several categories by the MTA. They were a bureaucracy at the end of the day. They wanted things neatly labeled. Type one was a general purpose specialty. One that worked well with everything, but was also considered a trap because it was too broad for most designers to advance easily. Bolt had no idea if that was true or not for him, but it was the best fit for him and his style.

"Then I suppose I'm ready for the official confirmation." He finally concluded out loud.

"We'll go over it a few more times on the way there to catch edge questions. Lies will be caught, but rehearsed explanations are just good sense. In the meantime..." Bubbles flicked through things they needed to do on the display. "Morning Star will be for fun on the way back. I don't want to talk about Dowry at the moment. We did speak of your work on that how-to guide of spirtuality. Do you remember my warning?"

"Not until I hit fifty or senior, make it explicitly about mechs, and call it psionics." Bolt replied immediately.

"Good. Normally that sort of information is restricted, but you've come to conclusions based off personal observation, so I can just check a few boxes to get you authorized. Furthermore if you can get it properly formatted it will be worth MTA merits. Clean it up, make it idiot proof, and get some experience, then I'll back you on submitting it. And on that note, I suppose we should go over the Heart System." The senior brought up the blueprints.

The creator of that system winced with dread as he stared at it. "Is it another problem?" He already had enough of that.

"No actually. It's more-" Here the designer hesitated as she seemed to consider how exactly she wanted to word it. "Well, first its value is theoretically enough that you could become rich by MTA standards."

For a moment the words didn't register. Then they did and Bolt gave the system another look in confusion. "What?" He asked blankly.

"Your notes on it are scattered, but you made it to centralize the OS and 'Spirit' so that it can be backed up. That would be considered nonsense and worthless by most people. The valuable component is the possibility of viewing a pilot's viewpoint. This also doesn't appear to use your specialty directly, which is another big benifit." Bubbles pointed out very carefully as she switched to the VR interface he'd sketched out.

"Ah, that's where that profit theory comes from then. I obviously wasn't able to test that and most of the sims didn't give good results." Bolt reasoned out loud. "Why is not using my philosophy a good thing?" He thought that was something that the MTA would heavily encourage.

"Short answer is things using that are powered by you, and your range is limited to this galactic sector. This falls under psionics and you'll be briefed on it when you arrived. It's good here because it means that if you get it working as you theorized there's a significant chance we will get a push to add it to a hardware update. The one after next specifically." The senior explained.

That would be massive. The hardware update in mech designer terms was a component and technology update the MTA sent out. The MTA had a list of official technologies they offered as base for all mechs. To put it in terms a normal person could understand, they sent out a series of base technologies and general educational packages once every few decades. Those base technologies could be modified and adjusted by anyone. That was the basis for all mechs of that generation. Anything not taken from that list required explicit approval to sell. The laser company he'd worked with had made it's name off adjusting and innovating on the designs in the last package.

If Bolt got on it, he'd get a part that would be sold galaxy wide. That was valuable. It was an amount of money that the MTA considered something to notice.

"That'd be in thirty to forty years though." Bolt pointed out the main issue he'd found there. "They'd likely not pay me until then, even if I could get it to work."

"We can get some pay your way now. As your official MTA liaison, I can offer you a lump payment immediately. It would be a substantial sum. I also wouldn't suggest taking it. You'd trade future profits for an immediate bonus." The pink haired woman flipped back her hair and brought up a few contracts. "I'd suggest this solution instead."

It was a lot of text. Bolt went a bit cross eyed as he tried to read it until a helpful AI summarized most of it. "Provisional Loan?" The word loan was something he was not eager to get into.

"Oh that damned summary." Bubbles waved it away and flicked at a few words in front of her to highlight them. "It's not a loan. It's essentially you creating a business around that part and and loaning out the design to them. Very technically it's also a series of loanes to that business. That business would handle most of the risk."

"While that sounds marginally better I don't have time for another business." Bolt pointed out. "Couldn't I just do something like this at home?"

"Part of that contract is you working with an MTA subsidiary that handles this. They have armies of organizations that do things with parts like your Heart system." Bubbles paused and lowered her voice, not that it mattered much to the monitors on a first rate ship. "This is also you playing ball with the MTA and giving them leverage over you in a way. You're signaling that you're working with the system rather than against it. I'd recommend it even without that. You would not be able to handle the scale of what would be needed if this does what we think it does. Plus, you get a salary!"

A series of numbers and words appeared in front of Bolt. He'd be a consultant for the part basically and have a salary of... "That's yearly?" That was a substantial number of MTA credits.

"Yep. You'd be a co-founder. You'd be on call and develop in tandem. They do things, you do things, and you keep each other updated and so on. You'll just need to be concerned about the tech, not the business side of it!" The senior replied with a grin and then brought up other prices. "You could afford a life extension for you on the first year, then for your wife, then do the children thing over the next few years. If the part succeeds, the pay goes up too!"

That would solve so many issues Bolt wasn't even surprised. At the same time though. "What if the Heart system doesn't work as expected?"

He got a shrug in reply and the woman twirled her hair as she both reclined in her chair in a rather sultry pose that looked extremely practiced and explained. "That happens. You're not liable. The company closes and you walk away with what you've been paid. Really, this option isn't open to journeymen unless some pretty big things are confirmed first. You can thank me later for doing that. It's a pain to do it discretely."

Bolt would probably accept the offer. He'd be ceding some control over the part in exchange for some immediate profit. He also couldn't say he hated the fact that he could offload some work on someone else. As entertaining as the initial idea for the system had been, he was quite aware that it was very incomplete and would likely need years worth of dedicated work to refine. Not only was likely not going to have the time, he really didn't have the desire to go through the dedicated Q&A required to make a galaxy wide part work.

"I can still implement it on my mechs right?" Bolt asked.

"Part of the process grants limited deployment rights. You can install it along with any updates on all mechs you sell and build so long as you keep a record of what you're doing. It's still your part. You're just making another company to handle development. If anything the extra test data will help." The senior assured him.

"Then lets get the paperwork done."

Bolt genuinely regretted those words a few minutes later. There was so much of it! And he couldn't just sign sans reading it either! So much legalese! (And hiring a lawyer to handle it would be a bit pointless. No one would dispute the MTA anyway.)

 

[lost star]

The MTA's headquarters was designed to awe. There was no other words for it. It was designed to be as awe inspiring as possible. From the orbital architecture, to the way you landed, to how you were guided, all of it was curated to provoke emotion. Bolt wasn't unaffected by it all. It's just that his awe was tempered slightly by a disdain he didn't know he had until he landed. Every part of it was something he'd never dreamed of, and he was only here because he'd pulled himself up by teaching himself through their junk.

He didn't let it show on his face or anywhere else. He buried that feeling and tried his best to conceal it. There could be no sign of anything bad in his thoughts. The MTA wasn't going to go out of it's way to stomp him, but he could easily make enemies if his attitude was wrong. Instead the man allowed himself to be led by a masterfully crafted robot and enjoyed the atmosphere of the highest technology humans could build. Sure the curated events were all propaganda, but they were very nice pieces of artwork too!

Bubbles was currently doing her own things. She'd pick up him when he was done. It wasn't exactly standard to get an MTA escort, but his entire life hadn't been standard. People wouldn't look twice so long as he didn't give them cause to.

The one to meet him after his initial tour was another senior. They met in front of a rather masterfully crafted First Rate mech that radiated power. Bolt wanted to absolutely destroy it on sight. His fingers itched to take it apart. The young man restrained the urge easily. He was no slave to his desires after all. It still basically ruined the powerplay that the organizers were likely going for. It was very hard to feel awe when you were tracing fault lines and ways to tear something down.

"Mr Silica. It's a pleasure to meet you. I am Professor Oodiv, a Senior Mech Designer in the service of the MTA." The man began with a deliberate handshake that made Bolt jolt a bit as something spiritual tapped and resonated with his internal abilities. "Forgive the strange verification method, but this is the fastest and most failproof way of verifying you advanced." He dropped the handshake and gave a nod. "Before everything else let me congratulate you. It's always pleasing to see someone young achieve the first real step of mech design. Follow me and we will continue with the verification process."

Bolt wasn't going to entertain the thought that he could object, so he did as requested. Fortunately it wasn't that strenuous. He just had to step into a small medical chamber right nearby the meeting point. It did a strange sort of scan that felt more like a full body massage than anything else. It would have been relaxing had it not also massaged his insides as well as his outsides. That seemed to confirm most of what the MTA wanted to confirm.

"Quite remarkable." Oodiv spoke as the young man exited the chamber. "We did have your records from your previous examination, but these are even more detailed and conclusive."

"Umm, remarkable?" Bolt tried to prompt for clarification.

"Oh, forgive me. You weren't informed." The senior looked a bit contrite, or at least gave the impression of it. "When you were first examined, questions were raised about your genetic profile. That was why the initial examination was redone. Afterwards the test results were deemed restricted information. Nothing to be alarmed about. We just didn't want to draw attention to what was a relatively minor stroke of good luck. Your parents were remarkably lucky. You and likely your sister have some very good fortune as well."

"Mind explaining that a bit more." The young man asked while they made their way to an office.

"Of course! We all know that people are born with different potentials. Some have slightly longer legs, some are better at one task than another. That's why we have geneticists! You, by a quirk of luck have an almost perfectly aligned body and mind." Oodiv shook his head in bemusement and took a seat at a very normal looking desk. "There are people that pay exorbitant amounts of money for something you got from good fortune. Honestly I'd recommend that your parents have more children or have their genetics preserved. That sort of thing is once in a million, which means there are only several trillion people with something similar." The senior chuckled slightly at his joke.

Bolt really wasn't sure what to think about that. "Damnit, now I'm wondering how this effects Lilly's wish for kids." He grumbled out his first thought.

"We offer services for reproductive aid. I would actually heavily advise you look into them. From my brief look at Lilly's profile, you will require a specialist. You are compatible with human norms. Hers are a mess to put it politely." Oodiv brought up a holographic report that detailed what looked to be Lilly's genetic profile. "If you ever find who did her genetics, please inform us. Lilly is human. She has all the proper markers to make her a good pilot. Every other modification makes little sense and seem to be borderline cruel. The doctor responsible needs to answer several very pointed and potentially lethal questions."

Despite all the pretenses, Bolt got the impression that the senior very much meant those words. He felt a bit touched. "Thank you." He said.

"Candidly, the MTA cannot address every wrong in this reality of ours. We do have people who very much try and something like this would get their attention." The older man dismissed the hologram and continued. "As an aside, your marriage to Lilly has been confirmed by the MTA as of today, and you both have the rights granted someone with a tenth class citizenship. You may speak with Senior Bubbles about the benefits of that, as I believe she has been selected as your personal liaison and has taken the responsibility of filling in any educational holes. I would like to formally congratulate you on your new company as well."

"Thank you for that too." Bolt felt a bit like he was repeating himself far too much lately, but what did you do when dealing with people with such overwhelming backing?

"You are quite welcome. I sincerely hope it works out for you. I would suggest you be careful with your spending and what you do once you leave though. Jealousy and greed are rife everywhere. Get some protection if you don't have it already." The professor gave a small shrug. "But that is the sum total of advice I can give in that matter. We've actually dithered a bit too much. It is time to get to the reason for this meeting. Please summarize your design philosophy for the record."

That made the young man straighten up. "Of course. Do you want the short version first?" He asked and continued after the nod. "I call it the Recycling, Conversion, and Unification of Machine Components."

"You workshopped the title obviously." Oodiv commented with a small and pleased smile. "I do appreciate the succinct terminology. On behalf of the MTA thank you for preparing. We will need some more elaboration of course."

"I suppose the best way to describe it is how I made my first real mech, Ghoul. I found a lot of ruined parts, I cleaned them up and repaired them, and then I made a coherent mech from them." Bolt explained with a gesture of his hands as he recalled working on it all.

"That is salvaging, or the recycling part of that summary, which I understand you consider a core part of your identity. This is me clarifying for the record, not trying to disparage. How would you work with a new mech?" The professor continued with a pleased expression.

"Well you still have to coordinate the parts together. Ain't like yer making it all from scratch. You alter them, shift them around, and then make sure it all works right. Sometimes ya need to sort of, cut away parts and add them elsewhere. Like if I wanted to make a fast one I'd cut armor and change the power direction." Bolt answered with some wild gestures.

"That'd be the conversion and unification. One last question then. How would you see yourself working with others? Say myself?" Oodiv pointed to himself. "I make mechs that work in the upper levels of gas giants."

"Pretty specialized there. And very impressive from an engineering perspective too." Bolt responded with respect and then tried to consider how it would work. "Would they need combat?"

"Mechs are weapons of war." The professor noted with a trace of amusement. "It's not like we'd use them for scientific achievements directly. As much as we all love them we can't and don't want to use them for every task."

"I'd either try to shore up what you were doing to specialize more, or try to address some weakness. Would need more details ta be more honest." Bolt admitted after some thought.

"That's enough for our needs and a very good note to finish on. Your cooperation and succinctness is greatly appreciated. We'll go ahead and enter that interview into the official record along with some notes. With your permission I'd like to submit your Ghoul and Dowry mechs to give physical examples and round out the records. This would be publicly available, and clarify your ethos." Oodiv brought up the blueprints in question.

"Um shit." Bolt cursed at the examples and then winced as he realized he'd just uttered profanity in an official office.

"Don't worry about language. I had a designer yesterday that could only go for two words without swearing. Nice man, but his culture had some quirks." The professor assured the younger man with a paternalistic look. "Allow me to guess as to the issue. You don't want to be known as one to make cannibal mechs?"

"Is it that obvious?" The young designer muttered as he stared at the mechs he'd made. He was proud of them, but he didn't want them to be his 'face' basically.

"How about your nanomachine ghoul and the dog then?" The older man brought up the designs in question. "The latter does show your ability to synthesize disparate parts together and while the former is niche it's also a very good display of your strengths."

"That would be better." Bolt admitted with relief.

"Good. With that the official record for your design ethos has been recorded and we can have you registered. After this we have some oaths. Then some briefings. After all of that I'd encourage you to take advantage of a few of our offers and take a tour of the place." Oodiv brought up a few catalogs. "Those will be sent to you comm address. I'm afraid that's all the time I have for you, but it was a very large pleasure and I hope you have a pleasant relationship with the MTA."

That had been surprisingly painless. Bolt would have to thank Bubbles later. The woman had likely smoothed over a lot of things and the review of designer ethos had turned out to be quite helpful in keeping things short and sweet.

 

[lost star]

Citizen tiers were worthless and worth something at the same time. Someone with a 10th level of citizenship was acknowledged by the MTA as worthwhile and worth protection. That was the value. They wouldn't do anything if someone shanked him in a back alleyway though. That was the lack of value. Bolt didn't have to worry about someone coming over and trying to steal or abduct him. He did have to worry about someone trying to kill him. It was an odd line in most respects.

He'd gone over the tiers with Bubbles before this. His conversation with the other senior had just reminded him of his conclusions. As someone that grown up with absolutely no protections he had a very low opinion of the citizenship tiers. Without a nation to call his own he wasn't even really considered a person by the powers that be. People could have enslaved and massacred his family for fun and the MTA wouldn't even have marked it down. Being a 10th class citizen just meant that someone would call it a crime if something bad was done to him.

Apparently the system had meant something at one point. People had wanted to advance in the tiers. They had been prestigious. Now it was a rotting husk held together by inertia and nepotism. 10th was where you had human rights, and it had not been designed that way.

Honestly Bolt felt like his thoughts applied to the MTA as a whole. Oh it was still a shining beacon from the outside. There wasn't even a hint of decay. He could feel it based on how he was moved through the system. The attitudes. The officials had this sort of self-occupied importance that felt off-putting. There was a hint of decadent rot here and there. Nothing obvious, yet at the same time far too much. Age and the inertia from old systems was causing flaws to appear.

The expertly crafted and absolutely masterful robot guiding him almost emphasized that. Sure it made an impression, but it was like showing up in a gold plated suit. It was just a display of power and wealth. The MTA could easily crush him. It could crush his entire sector. Bolt still felt no fondness or respect for the organization. Each presentation made him almost taste the dust and rust from home.

After some walking he was led into a central area and given a few oaths to make. They were old words. Oaths and words from a brighter time, when the MTA had been founded. They were enforced harshly. Yet somehow they also felt like nothing but air. This was emphasized by the briefings he had to go through. All of them were lies about psionics and how it was human exclusive, and other things. Lies upon lies.

About the only truths there was how to advance as Journeyman and how far his 'psionics' reached. The first happened by exploring the limits of his specialty and learning of new mechs. The latter worked across the sector. If he advanced to senior the range would increase more. It brought up more questions than answers really and made the briefings almost worthless.

Why he was thinking these thoughts?! Bolt should have been ecstatic! He was getting enough money that he could theoretically move to a First Rate State! All his dreams were coming true. He was getting money and power at such a young age that it boggled the mind. Yet all he could think of was the corruption and flaws!

"Ug." The young man rubbed at his forehead. What had those oaths been again? Nothing he wouldn't do anyway. Something about this situation was making him horribly cynical and he needed to stop it now before he did something that got him in trouble.

"If you require a break, we have designated break areas with full amenities!" The robot cheerfully informed him and then paused. "One moment please. Switching to delivery mode. A care package has been sent to you and will be arriving shortly. Would you like to visit a break room to receive it?"

Bolt stared at the thing and then nodded. "Yes." Taking a break was actually the right call here.

He was guided to a small room with a chair and a table. Bolt relaxed on the chair and rubbed at his forehead again. That robot's AI was absolutely horrible, which wasn't actually surprising. The MTA apparently had a serious hatred for AIs and certain types of automation. He'd heard a bit about it, but actually interacting with it was surprisingly frustrating. They had a robot worth more than some star systems being piloted by a chat-bot equivalent he could program in an hour. It felt like half his irritation had come from just having to deal with that thing. There was nothing worse than seeing something beautiful marred by intentional flaws.

A few seconds after sitting down the package arrived on his table through a small flying drone. It looked very innocent. Just a secured box. Bolt took a deep breath to press down his emotions and pressed a finger to the lock. It opened with a chime and he decided right then and there he was probably over his head again.

Inside were several items. A round disk object, three smaller and shiny disks, and a comm. Bolt picked up the comm first. It started up on his touch with a pleasant chime.

Bolt couldn't help but stare at the screen. It looked identical one of the comms his family made. Looks were deceiving. This was a first rate comm. It had FTL communications, a range of light years, didn't need recharging for centuries, and was nearly indestructible. The specifications it was rattling off had implications. It was more advanced and had more processing power than all the computers back at home put together! Hell, it could even fly a bit if he needed it to. (Admittedly having it return if he lost it in the room was very nice.)

'Further communications between us shall be on this comm from this number. The inbuilt security will styme most attempts at interception.' The text was waiting and as coldly clinical as always. 'You will be informed if this device is compromised, but assume it is secured from anything short of an MTA or CFA specialist. Inside the box are customary rewards for a journeyman. The batteries will be replaced if they are all used in the course of preserving your life.'

That was actually surprisingly reasonable as a message. Bolt played with the phone a bit and found the guide as to the other items in the container. They were really simple. They were shield generator and batteries. If he had the generator in his pockets or somewhere on his body it would project a shield around him if something tried to kill him. The shield could tank mech-grade fire and would last a few minutes. Bolt had four charges for this shield in total, counting the one already in it.

It felt excessive as a gift. At the same time he couldn't say that he disliked the added security either. They were practical gifts. Even the box was practical. It was a First Rate security box. Nothing short of a First Rate mech could damage it, and getting into required him or people he designated. Hacking or breaching it would require something very special. It was a combination of surprisingly considerate and yet impersonal at the same time.

Ultimately Bolt couldn't actually reject this generousity, so he just began to browse through his messages in an attempt to cool himself down. There were a few. Now that he was confirmed as a Journeyman he was on several automated lists and had access to several services the MTA offered. The catalogs were both expansive and expensive. They had everything he could think of. He also had no desire for most of it. He did have some credits due to being forwarded the first year's salary from his new company. He just didn't want much. Eventually he decided to plan for the future. He made an appointment to do the life extension process early and continued to browse through the messages he'd gotten.

Eventually he found something interesting. The Rim Guardians. A society dedicated to helping the people on the Rim, as in him and his family. They seemed like a natural fit, and they were having a small event shortly.

A few messages to Bubbles and then to the organizers got something arranged. They were holding that event right on the station, which meant at least some influence with the MTA. Bubbles had confirmed they were legitimate too, so Bolt felt a bit optimistic as he made his way there. (After having the box delivered back to Bubble's ship.)

"Journeyman Bolt?" He was met at the entrance of the meeting area by a rather pretty woman dressed in muted colors and possessing a rather unassuming air. "It's a pleasure to have you here. I assume you are here to look into the Rim Guardians?"

"Yes." Bolt answered as he looked around the small office. It looked rather like every other office.

"Thank you for accepting our invitation then! Now, as you probably heard, we're hosting a small and quick event for recruitment purposes. We're calling this a challenge event. You will he partnered up with two other journeymen with semi-compatible design ethos. The goal will be to design a mech for an environment that is as deliberately oppositional as possible. For instance, if you designed artillery mechs, we'd try to place you in a close range combat scenario." The woman explained. "Once the mech is designed we'll assign a pilot and have the mech run through the scenario. You get a small reward of Rim Guardian credits for participating and a larger reward if you succeed."

"Mechs are created using the instant fabrication technology I assume?" Bolt had heard about that particular technology.

"Correct!" The woman responded with a small grin. "Any other questions?"

"None in particular." Bolt shook his head. "Mind showing me where to go?"

"Of course not." The secretary took the box and directed the young man through a door.

To his mild surprise going through the door led him to a completely different area. It was like he'd walked into a park rather than a hallway. Some sort of technology was changing the viewpoints, and he found his steps taking himself through actual grass until he reached a modest looking pavilion with a pair of people already waiting.

"And there's our third! Quite prompt!" One of the men said with bemusement.

"Were you waiting long?" Bolt asked as he walked up to the two.

"No, not at all. Despite how it looks, there's probably a good thousand people here and we were just getting settled in. We're sectioned off through a few perspective tricks." The man said and leaned back a bit. "My you're a tall one. I love the muscles. Very brutalist. You look like you could rip someone's head off and scream at the sky in victory."

"He's not a first rater. That's all natural." The other person pointed out calmly.

Bolt looked the two over. The first man looked, well feminine was the best way to describe it. Flowery, with lacy looking clothing and a hint of makeup. He was still very obviously male, but the look was gentle. The other man, well it was hard to tell. They had a furred hood up and only the chin was really visible. Their clothing was so obviously cold weather that Bolt felt hot looking at him.

"Oh dear, did I commit another offense? If so I'm sorry. I'm quite enamored by the people at the Rim. Living life in that area seems so much more real." The feminine man offered a hand. "Delicee, Journeyman, specialty is the stars and how they move with us all!"

"That sounds intriguing." Bolt answered as he took the hand. "Pleasure to meet you. I'm Bolt, Journeyman and I call my specialty Recycling, Conversion, and Unification."

"And you're actually sincere about your interest." Delicee shoot the hand and turned to the other man. "This one at least gave me a funny look, not that that's easy to tell with his outfit!"

"Gary. Specialty endothermic reactions." Gary offered a glove hand that Bolt shook. "And based on your expression you're wondering about the clothing. It's temperature controlled, I grew up in an ice planet, I'm uncomfortable in anything less than this."

"Pleasure. Did ya expect me to flinch at your specialty Delicee?" Bolt asked the other man.

"Something like that. It's fun mystifying people. Astrology is a funny old religious thing and everyone dismisses it when I bring it up. Then I get to squish them like tiny bugs." The man said with a sigh. "More clearly put, my specialty uses gravitational forces in space conditions to produce interesting effects. Which means I'm going to struggle a lot here."

"Why might I ask?" The young designer inquired while looking around the park he was in. Very scenic.

"We're designing a second rate mech for a ground scenario." Gary informed him. "The goal is going to be killing a few giant animals for trophies. My disadvantage is that we're using limited parts, and none of the exotics I'm used to."

"And that's probably necessary for your specialty to really shine." Bolt reasoned out quickly. "I'm guessing they set it against giant animals to try to hinder me. This is an interesting test." Also a bit silly. He was barely hindered by the animals.

"That's the point! It's a sort of expression of what the Rim Guardians have to do, and a way of making connections between possible members!" Delicee said with a grin. "It is actually quite enthralling. I've not been challenged this way before. A ground battle with such primitive parts? How novel!"

"If you haven't guessed, Delicee is slumming it from a First Rate area. I'm from a Second Rate nation in another sector. Had to move here and don't have much to my name." Gary added on. "I'm guessing you're Third Rate?"

"That easy to tell?" Bolt looked down at himself while wondering what gave it away.

"The clothing is a good sign. It's fabricated and lacks any second rate tells. The hands are the biggest one sign. You obviously make things by hand. You don't do that at Second and above." The hood covered man said with a shrug.

Bolt gave a snort at the deduction. "They're missing out in many ways. Figured out more than a few things that way."

Delicee gave a small laugh. "I don't doubt it. How old are you?"

"Umm." Bolt frowned slightly as he tried to recall his age. "I think twenty two or three? Relativity and FTL make it hard to tell."

"So, not the youngest, but fairly young, and from a third rate. They must have put the people with potential in the same group. I advanced at twenty, and I'd guess that our snowman probably hit it early too." The gravity specialist noted with a contemplative look on his face. "That simplistic statement of your ethos. I'd guess that it understates everything. You don't show a trace of hesitation for making a second rate either. I do believe I'm going to enjoy this." He grinned.

Bolt realized at that moment that the first rate designer had been putting on an act almost the entire time. That was a grin that was more real than anything else he'd done the entire interaction. Gary also suddenly looked a bit focused too.